Born in Crimea, Dzhemilev left in May 1944 when Soviet leader Josef Stalin ordered the deportation of its entire Tatar population of around 200,000, after accusing them of collaborating with Nazi Germany during World War II.

During the Soviet era, Dzhemilev became a hero for speaking out to keep the Crimean Tatar identity alive and to demand that his people be allowed to return home.

For those activities, he was twice imprisoned in the Gulag for a total of 15 years.

Since the 1980s, some 250,000 Tatars have returned to Crimea from exile, mostly from Central Asia. However, Dzhemilev, who is a member of Ukrainian parliament, has warned that Russia seeks to use the Tatar issue to destabilize Crimea, and that Ukrainian authorities aren't helping the matter by reneging on promises to assist the Tatars.

He has also warned that tensions between Tatars and Russians are deliberately stoked by propaganda that Tatars will take revenge on Russians by dispossessing them of land, saying: "They definitely fear that the Crimean Tatars would do the same to the Russians as was done to the Crimean Tatars -- if the Crimean Tatars here had enough power."