The leader of Crimea’s pro-Kiev Tatar community on Tuesday received a Polish prize for championing democracy and human rights, before an audience of dignitaries in Warsaw.
Mustafa Dzhemilev, 70, picked up the inaugural Solidarity Prize at a ceremony notably attended by Ukraine’s president-elect Petro Poroshenko and US Secretary of State John Kerry.
“How long our land will be occupied and our nation humiliated depends on the solidarity of the people of the world in the fight against international banditry,” the Ukrainian lawmaker said upon accepting the million-euro ($1.4-million) award.
The Soviet-era dissident has been involved in defending the rights of his people.
Crimea’s 300,000 Tatars make up around 12 percent of the peninsula’s population and largely boycotted the disputed March referendum in which the majority voted to join Russia.
Dzhemilev has been front and centre in the Ukrainian crisis, telling a session of the UN Security Council that the Tatars feared for their lives.
In April, Crimean authorities banned him from flying to the peninsula, accusing him of seeking to destabilise the situation there.
Poland set up the annual Solidarity award to mark a quarter century since its first semi-free elections, which heralded the demise of communism.
Poroshenko and US President Barack Obama will be among those in Warsaw on Wednesday to celebrate the anniversary of that vote on June 4, 1989.