Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People

[6] Majlis is the Arabic word for a sitting room,[7] however it can also refer to a legislature as well, and is used in the name of legislative councils or assemblies in some states of the Islamic world.

"[17] Crimean Tatar organizations urged President Viktor Yanukovych to "protect Crimea's indigenous people from discrimination".

The status of Mejlis was legalized by the Ukrainian Presidential decree of 18 May 1999 "About the council of representatives of Crimean Tatar people".

[1] The Mejlis was labeled an "extremist organisation" by Russian authorities in Crimea and banned by the Russian-appointed Supreme Court on 26 April 2016.

[35] Also, on 26 April 2016, Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights Nils Muižnieks urged the Court to reverse the ban since he believed "equating [the Mejlis] with extremism paves the way for stigmatisation and discrimination of a significant part of the Crimean Tatar community and sends a negative message to that community as a whole".

[2] Exiled in mainland Ukraine, Chairman of the Mejlis Refat Chubarov stated the Court's decision had been unjustifiable and that "the occupiers in Crimea are doing everything to crush Crimean Tatars and force everyone to be silent".

[36] Deputy head of the Mejlis İlmi Ümerov was on 7 September 2016 released after a three weeks' involuntary detention for tests of his "mental capacity" in a psychiatric hospital in Simferopol, where he was taken after stating on TV that Crimea should be returned to Ukraine; doctors ruled him entirely sane.

[38] On 1 October 2016, Head of the Republic of Crimea Sergei Aksyonov explained that Natalia Poklonskaya accused Mejlis of energy blockade through diversion.

[30] In April 2017, the UN International Court of Justice issued an interim order against the Russian Federation to allow Crimean Tatar Mejlis' activities,[41] and in July 2018, reminded Russia of its legal obligation.

[42] In the 2019 Ukrainian Presidential Election, the Mejils supported the re-election campaign of then incumbent President Peter Poroshenko.

[43] On 28 February 2022, the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People condemned the Russian Federation, describing it as a "a terrorist state", and calling its military and political leaders international criminals on account of Russia's full-scale invasion of other parts of Ukraine.