London, 15 February 2007
PRESS RELEASE: World Chechnya Day: "A day few are aware of yet none should forget: Friday 23rd February 2007
The Save Chechnya Campaign is joining with individuals and organisations around the world to commemorate World Chechnya Day to commemorate the victims of Stalin's deportation of the Chechen people in 1944. In 2004, the European Parliament passed a motion recognising the atrocity as Genocide.
SCC Director Saida Sheriff stated:
"World Chechnya Day commemorates one of the untold stories of the Second World War; the complete annihilation of the Chechen people."
"It is imperative that, if the world is serious about resolving the current conflict in Chechnya, it recognises and understands the genocide which took place here."
Date: Friday 23 February 2007
Location: Yalta Memorial, Cromwell Gardens, South Kensington, London SW7 2SL
Nearest Underground Station: South Kensingto
Time: 3.00-4.15pm
Programme:
3.00 Gather at the Yalta Memorial
3.10 Opening & Welcome
3.15 Mrs Saida Sheriff, Director, Save Chechnya Campaign
3.20 Lord Frank Judd, Parliamentarian
3.25 Rev Frank Gelli, Former Curate of St Mary Abbots, Kensington Parish Church & Founder of Arkadash Network for Religious Dialogue.
3.30 Usama Hasan, Al-Tawhid Mosque, Leyton
3.35 Recital of Memories
3.40 Tom Frost, Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC)
3.45 Chris Nineham, Respect Party
3.50 Yvonne Ridley, journalist
3.55 Lyoma Shakhmurzaev, former member of the government of independent Chechnya
4.05 Messages of Support
4.10 Prayer, Usama Hasan
4.14 Minute Silence
4.15 End
Notes for Editor:
1. On 23 February 1944, Joseph Stalin ordered the deportation of the entire Chechen and Ingush population to Central Asia. More than half of the 500,000 people who were forcibly transported died in transit or in
massacres committed by Soviet troops. Those who survived the journey were left facing starvation and disease in the harsh winters of Siberia and
Central Asia .
2. Within days an entire people had been erased from the land of their ancestors. Overnight Chechnya and Ingushetia were emptied of their native inhabitants, and every reference to Chechnya was removed from official maps, records and encyclopaedias.
3. On 26 February 2004, sixty years after the atrocity, the European Parliament passed a motion that recognised this tragedy as Genocide.
4. Statements issued in relation to Remembrance
"The Kremlin's Genocide of Chechen people has been accepted by Europeans leaders to the shame of us all, citizens of Europe."
- Vanessa Redgrave (actress)
"As a Christian, I feel that it is morally and spiritually imperative that the innocent victims of Stalin should not be forgotten. The history of communism's barbarous, murderous record must be taught in schools to all young people. All men and women of faith should campaign for that to happen."
- Rev. Father Frank Gelli
"Feb 23rd was chosen as the day to remember Chechnya and the Chechens because on that day in 1944 Stalin's Russia initiated a brutal mass deportation of the whole of the Chechen and Ingush people in which half a million died en route".
- Lord Rea of Eskdale
5. For further information please visit www.worldchechnyaday.org
