Thank you, Chair.
Welcome once again, Mr. Kara-Murza, to the foreign affairs committee.
You referenced Mr. Sakharov and the 126 prisoners of conscience during the Soviet period. Very few of those individuals are still living; very few of them are still with us.
One individual who spent 15 years between 1966 and 1986 in the gulag system appeared before our committee three weeks ago: the iconic Mustafa Dzhemilev. He spent 15 years in the gulag for demanding the right of return of the Crimean Tatars to their ancestral homeland.
In his testimony before the committee three weeks ago, virtually on the 75th anniversary of the Sürgünlik, he asked that Canada's Parliament recognize what happened to the Crimean Tatars under Stalin as a genocide.
Mr. Kara-Murza, would you agree that what happened to the Crimean Tatars was in fact a genocide?