Ayşe Seitmuratova (Russian: Айше Сеитмуратова; born 11 February 1937) is a Crimean Tatar civil rights activist.
Born in Crimea shortly before the Surgun, she survived deportation as a child and lived for many years as a “special settler”, rendering her a second-class citizen.
After academic opportunities that she overqualified for were denied to her because of the “special settler” designation that was applied to her only because of her ethnicity,[1] she became an active member of the Crimean Tatar civil rights movement.
Her advocacy attracted the attention of Andrey Sakharov and an American senator, who helped her through the difficult process of emigrating from the Soviet Union.
Before eventually being able to return to Crimea after a long political battle she met president Ronald Reagan and participated in many human rights conferences.