Thank you for being here this morning.
It was also wonderful to see you yesterday at the National Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony, with your entire Ukrainian delegation, including the ambassador.
As chair of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights, I want to come back to the topic that my colleague Mr. Kmiec raised, for a bit of a deeper assessment of the human rights situation.
On the third anniversary of the annexation of Crimea, our foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland unreservedly denounced the severe repression of human rights in occupied Crimea. Can you talk about the situation being faced by the minority communities in Crimea?
Russia banned the self-governing body of the Crimean Tatars, the Mejlis, and our foreign affairs minister has noted how we are deeply troubled by politically motivated application of anti-terror and anti-extremist legislation, which has led to the harassment of human rights activists, arbitrary detentions and disappearances, and the persecution of Crimean Tatars and other minorities.
We understand that an estimated 10,000 Tatars have left Crimea since it was annexed. Can you shed some light on the human rights situation and the threats that minorities are facing in this region?