Circassians Handed A Letter to the Estonian Parliament
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The International Circassian Council
Honorable Members of the Estonian Parliament,
As members of the Circassian nation speaking in behalf of many in homeland and Diaspora people of our nation. we convey our sincere respect and best wishes to the Estonian people. The Circassians appreciate the opportunity to submitting to you facts about the continuing tragedy of our nation.
The plight of our Circassian nation, as one of the most ancient nations of the world and the most indigenous to the Caucasus is certainly one of the saddest episodes of humanity. The ongoing Russian evil imperial greed for the past 151 years has nearly eliminated our nation from existence. Ninety percent of our people live in scattered Diaspora through out the world not allowed to repatriate to our homeland. And less than ten percent are allowed to remain in our motherland. This imposes grave consequences in the present and the future of our victimized nation. The Genocide the Russian state inflicted upon us, has eliminated more than half of our population and subsequently drove the remaining survivors into fetal ethnic cleansing and forced exile. Our Diaspora population is deprived from any direct association with culture, history and relations with our brothers and sisters in Circassia.
The past and current Russian state policies are in direct and clear violation of all internationally recognized laws and norms. Including the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, the International Law and and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples.
More than two hundred thousand ethnic Circassians suffer today in the bloody Syrian civil war. Not less than 22 Circassian villages and large residential communities have been completely destroyed. Tens of thousands of Circassians have been forced to live without shelter, food or medical care.
Only a small fraction of this small oppressed ethnic European minority have been able to escape the civil war and return to Circassia to live in the relative safety of our motherland. Yet, all returnees are subjected to fabricated and discriminatory measures by the authority intended to force them leave our motherland and discourage other suffering Circassians to repatriate.
Despite the tragic and dark history of our Circassian Genocide, Russia had invited the world to celebrate the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games over the mass graves of our people. Russia is planning to hold more festivities in Sochi in the upcoming events of World Cup of 2018 and Formula One in October 2015.
Russia has destroyed all mass grave and historical sacred sites of the victims of our people in order to erase any evidence of its historical crime, denying us the memorial observance we must have as part of our culture and tradition to remember the men women and children whose lives were taken in the Circassian Genocide.
All this while Human Rights conditions for Circassians in the North Caucasus are harsh and deteriorating as a result of Russia’s intended hostile policies towards homeland Circassians and any Human Rights activism.
Circassians today are in dire need to make the free world aware of our enduring tragedy and honest people of the world support our cause.
We call upon the people of Estonia represented by its Parliament to follow similar approach made by the Parliament of the people of Georgia in recognizing the Circassian Genocide and the ethnic cleansing of our people as a Genocide and a a crime against humanity .
Adel Bashqawi Nusrat Bas
Iyad Youghar Serdar Bas
Tallinn,Estonia.
June 4th, 2015.
