Crimean Tatar national leader Mustafa Abdulcemil Qirimoglu turns 83

Crimean Tatar national leader Mustafa Abdulcemil Qirimoglu was born on 13 November 1943 in the village of Bozkoy in Crimea. He was only six months old when the Crimean Tatar people were deported to Uzbekistan on 18 May 1944.

As a young man he worked at a factory in Tashkent, and in 1969 he was among the founders of the Initiative Group for the Defence of Human Rights in the USSR. He spent about 15 years in prisons and camps, was freed in 1986 and returned to Crimea in 1989.

After the National Kurultay of June 1991 he became the first chairman of the Crimean Tatar National Assembly (Mejlis). He has been a member of the Ukrainian parliament since 1998 and served as the Ukrainian president's representative for Crimean Tatar affairs in 2014-2019. He received the UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award in 1998, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 and was decorated with Turkey's Order of the Republic by Abdullah Gul in April 2014.

On his birthday, the Crimean Tatar press wished him good health and a long life.