Shaul M. Gabbay
University of Denver, USA
Title: The crisis in Ukraine and the impact on Crimea’s Muslim population
Biography
Biography: Shaul M. Gabbay
Abstract
Since acquiring independence in 1991, Ukraine has suffered the consequences of never fully assimilating into Western Europe and has had to grapple with its corrosive relationship with Russia. The past twenty-four years have been tumultuous on many levels for Ukrainian citizens as the pursuit of a Western, democratic political structure was/has never been fully attained. Economic depression, political corruption and violent revolutions have greatly hampered Ukraine’s ability to prosper independently as a liberal democracy. As this paper will show, the increasingly volatile political atmosphere in the Ukraine that climaxed with a violent revolution and forced exile of the Ukrainian president in combination with Russia’s insurgence into Crime equates directly to a spike in religiously motivated political and physical attacks on Ukraine’s religious minorities’ infrastructure, livelihood and civilians. In this paper, we focus on the situation Ukraine’s Tartar Muslim population faces.