A screening of the documentary “Son of Crimea: Struggle of a People” about the leader of the Crimean Tatars Mustafa Dzhemilev (parts 4 and 5 related to Soviet human rights activist Petro Grigorenko) along with Olha Onyshko’s documentary “Women of Maidan” were screened on March 28, 2015, at the George Mason University, Arlington, VA. The program was organized by the Arlington Sister City Association (Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukraine) Committee), in cooperation with the International Committee for Crimea, Inc. and the Embassy of Ukraine in the U.S. The screening was attended by local Ukrainian and American communities, including the students and scholars of the George Mason University and the American University, DC.
The program was opened by the introduction comments of event’s organizers and followed by Q&A session with the invited experts: President of the International Committee for Crimea, Inc. Inci A. Bowman, Ph.D., the member of Petro Grigorenko Foundation, Inc. Board of Directors Andrew Grigorenko (the son of Petro Grigorenko), Director for Genocide Prevention Program, fellow of the Center for Peacemaking Practice, School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution of the George Mason University Douglas Irvin-Erickson, Ph.D., film maker Olha Onyshko and the representative of the Embassy of Ukraine. For the attention of the audience, the address of political analyst, columnist, and editor of “Window on Eurasia” Paul Globe was delivered.
The events of the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine were discussed; historical parallels were outlined between the Soviet Union’s deportation of the Crimean Tatars and current severe infringements of rights and freedoms of ethnic groups and free media by the so-called occupation “authorities” of the Russian Federation in Ukraine’s Crimea. The need of higher international attention to those violations was stressed as well as active, but non-violent resistance to the occupation power.
Read also Paul Goble's remarks made at the film screening event at George Mason University, Arlington, on 28 March 2015: "Who Talks about the Crimean Tatars Nowadays?" http://www.iccrimea.org/reports/goble-crimeantatars.html