Mr. Speaker, in the past, this House has hosted legendary figures who have distinguished themselves in the battle for human rights. Today, Mustafa Dzemiliev is here in Ottawa.
At the age of six months, he and his family and the entire 200,000 Crimean Tatar people were ethnically cleansed from their ancestral land and deported en masse to central Asia by Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin. Forty per cent of their population died.
As a young man speaking out for the rights of his people to preserve their culture and language and their right to return to their ancestral home, Mr. Dzemiliev spent 18 brutal years in the Soviet gulag. In the 1990s, he led the return of his people to Crimea and today is chairman of the Mejlis parliament of the Crimean Tatar people.
His harrowing personal story and that of the Crimean Tatars is to be inspired by the triumph of human spirit over evil.
On behalf of the House of Commons, I welcome Mr. Dzemiliev to Canada to share with us his vision of peace for his people and for the Crimean peninsula.