Crimean Tatar Leader was granted the Solidarity Prize in Warsaw

Poland has honored Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Jemilev with a new democracy award dedicated to the promotion of freedom and democracy across the world, Islam in Ukraine informs.

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski gave the Lech Walesa Solidarity Prize to Jemilev at a ceremony attended by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Ukraine's newly-elected President Petro Poroshenko.

In his speech on receiving the prize, Mustafa Jemilev said the award represented an emotional support to Crimean Tatars' bid to get their rights and to return to their homeland.

"Our nation, our Ukrainian state is under great danger. Our lands have been occupied by a country which pledged in 1994's Budapest Memorandum to be a guarantor of Ukraine's territorial integrity. (...) We hope that, with the support of democratic forces, we will save our homeland from occupation and continue to live together," he said.

Petro Poroshenko, who was in Warsaw on his first trip abroad in his new role, called Jemilev "a great Ukrainian hero."

“For years, Mustafa Jemilev has been promoting democracy and civil rights and civil liberties in Ukraine, specifically among the Tatar community,” Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said.