UKRAINE: Crimea- Jemilev to recive one mln euros Poland Solidarity Prize

QHA Crimean News Agency ^ | 7 May 2014 13:52

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(QHA) - The Foreign Ministry is to award one million euros 'Solidarity Prize' to Crimean Tatar leader, Ukrainian MP Mustafa Jemilev.

Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski announced this on his Twitter account.

The award will go to a person who has contributed to promoting democracy in line with the principles of solidarity.

Initiated by Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland, the Prize to be presented on June 4, day that will mark the 25th anniversary of the first partially-free parliamentary elections.

According to the minister, the award will consist of three segments: 250,000 euros will go to the laureate, 700,000 euros will be assigned for Polish development aid programs named by the winner, and 50,000 euros will be presented to the laureate for a study trip around Poland, so that he or she can “learn more about our successful struggle for freedom.”

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INFO: STALIN'S DEPORTATION Soviet leader Josef Stalin deported the Muslim Tatar community from Crimea in 1944 to central Asia, with almost half dying from hunger, thirst and disease. They began returning in the 1980s during the period of perestroika and account for about 12 percent of Crimea’s more than 2 million people, according to a Ukrainian census in 2001.

“Jemilev is a symbol of the Crimean Tatars’ fight for the right to be called Crimean Tatars,” Maxim Shevchenko, who serves on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s council for human rights and inter-ethnic relations, said by phone today. Banning someone who fought so long for his homeland and for his nation’s return is a “cheap trick,” he said.

The awards committee, with former Polish president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa as chairman, met on April 25. The prize will be awarded by Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski at the Royal Palace in Warsaw on June 3.

The prize includes 250,000 euros awarded directly to the winner, as well as a 700,000-euro contribution to a development program chosen by the winner and 50,000 euros to fund a study trip to Poland for the laureate.

Poland’s Foreign Ministry created the Solidarity Prize in January to recognize democracy and civil liberties activists, according to the ministry’s website statement from February 11.