CRIMEA TURNING INTO A HOT SPOT

The situation in the Crimea is getting tense. According to reports from Kiev, the National Security Council of the Ukraine will discuss a proposal to ban the Muslim fundamentalist group Hizb-ut-Takhrir that operates openly in the Crimean peninsula. This group is blacklisted as a terrorist organization in many countries. Until recently the Ukraine has been closing her eyes on its activities in the Crimea hoping, as some analysts think, to play the fundamentalists off against the Russian-speaking majority opposed to Ukrainian rule. Today a group of Tatar militants has held a demonstration at the building of the regional Parliament in Simferopol. They have demanded to release a group of individuals convicted of ransacking a night club in Simferopol and beating up TV journalists. Another protest has been held today at the building of the self-proclaimed Tatar parliament - “medjlis”. A group of people were peacefully demonstrating in scuba diving gear. They are angry at a recent takeover by Tatar activists of a diving centre. The militants supported by the “medjlis” claim the land of the Shelf Diving Centre near Sudak, a small town in a scenic area on the Black Sea shore. They think Tatars have historic right to settle anywhere in the Crimea. The illegal “medjlis” officials got mad at the demonstrators. One of them even said that Tatars did not forget how to pull a trigger.