“When the Soviet Union dissolved nearly a decade ago, the consequences of a variety of historical injustices were dramatically revealed. One of the most poignant travesties concerns whole peoples who were deported to Central Asia by communist dictator Josef Stalin in 1944. These formerly deported peoples include the Crimean Tatars, who have now returned in significant numbers to their homeland in Ukraine. This report concerns the Meskhetian Turks, a less well-known victimized people who were not only deported en masse in 1944, but who were also subjected in 1989 to a pogrom in the Fergana Valley in what is now Uzbekistan. Dispersed in Central Asia (Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan), Russia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan (where most have re-located), the Meskhetian Turks aspire to return to their ancestral homeland in Georgia. Only a relative handful have been permitted to return, and many live in difficult circumstances in places such as the Krasnodar region of Russia, where they are often subject to discriminatory and abusive treatment by local authorities, such as in the granting or withholding of residency permits.” – Publisher’s description
