Crimean Tatars Protest against 'Illegal' Referendum

Around 500 Crimean Tatars took to the streets after prayers on Islam's holy day Friday to protest against an "illegal" referendum on closer ties with Russia which they plan to boycott.

Waving Ukrainian flags and chanting "Go away Putin" and "Russian soldiers go home", the protestors lined one of the main roads in Bakhchysaray, the biggest Tatar settlement in Crimea.

The rally was held under the slogan "No to the illegal referendum!" to be held on Sunday following a decision by the Medzhlis, the Tatar parliament.

Earlier, the Tatars were urged to resist "provocations" at Friday prayers at the 16th century Big Khan mosque, the town's largest.

The demonstration was peaceful but watched from the other side of the road by around half a dozen pro-Moscow self-defense forces.

One protestor, Fatima Suittarova, 40, came to the rally with her young daughter.

"We don't even want to think about the possibility of joining Russia," she told AFP.

"We see the future of our nation only with Ukraine."

Another protestor, 63-year-old Said Umir, said he feared the prospect of Crimea -- currently an autonomous peninsula which is part of Ukraine -- joining Russia.

"Every five years, Russia has war and we don't want our children to be fighting for them," he said.

A few trucks carrying Russian forces were stationed on Bakhchysaray's main road out of the town on Friday morning, an AFP reporter saw, but they did not appear at the demonstration.

A convoy of dozens of cars waving Russian flags and tooting their horns did drive by, drawing loud chants from the crowd.

The Tatars are native to Crimea and were the main ethnic group on the peninsula until they were deported en masse by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin during World War II.

They only started returning as the Cold War was ending in the late 1980s and currently make up some 12 percent of Crimea's mostly Russian-speaking population of two million people.

Worshipers outside the mosque after Friday prayers spoke of their fears about the future.

"Only Allah knows what will happen -- we just want there to be peace," said Haji Rasim Islam Settar Ogoli, 79.

"Ukrainians, Tatars, Russians are brothers here. We already saw a lot of things because we are old and we want to live in peace."

Another man, 83-year-old Rasim, said he felt unsafe due to the presence of Russian forces around the town.

"How can you feel with armed people around? You don't expect something good," he said.

"We're surrounded by the army so what can we do about it?"

The mosque's imam declined to talk to reporters, citing safety fears, but people speaking after prayers said he had urged them to remain peaceful.

"He said to look out for provocations and take care of our families," said Hasan, 26.

"We were told not to follow provocations because this referendum is illegal."

Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev urged NATO to intervene in Crimea to avert a "massacre" and called on the Tatars to boycott Sunday's referendum in an interview with AFP Thursday.

"If other measures do not work, then NATO should intervene like in Kosovo," Dzhemilev said in a phone interview from Brussels, where he was due to meet NATO's deputy secretary general Alexander Vershbow later Friday.

NATO intervention "usually only happens when there is a massacre, we want it to happen before there is a massacre," said Dzhemilev, a lawmaker in Kiev who spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call earlier this week.

"I told him that we would not wage war against Russia but that we would struggle for the territorial integrity of our country," he said.

Dzhemilev also criticized inaction in the West, saying it had taken no "serious steps".

The referendum is meant to confirm Thursday's decision by Crimea's pro-Moscow parliament to become part of the Russian Federation, but Ukraine's new government in Kiev, which ousted pro-Russia president Viktor Yanukovych, has deemed it "illegitimate".