UK Ambassador to Ukraine concerned about Mejlis ban

Gough wrote on Twitter Friday: "Concerned at Russian Supreme Court decision banning Crimean Tatar Mejlis in illegally annexed Crimea. Russia must respect human rights." Russia's Supreme Court ruling on September 29 upheld the decision of a Moscow-backed Crimean court to ban the Mejlis, Radio Liberty said. Mejlis chairman Refat Chubarov told journalists in Kyiv on Friday that the Russian court's ruling will be appealed at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry condemned the Russian Supreme Court's ruling, urging Russia to immediately lift its ban and end what it called "the oppression of the Crimean Tatar community in Crimea." On April 26, more than two years after Russia seized and illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, Crimea's pro-Russian Supreme Court branded the Mejlis as an extremist organization and officially banned it. The Mejlis had been legalized by the Ukrainian government in 1999 and remains the official representative body of this national minority which sizes up to 12 percent of the two-million population of Crimea.