Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta published a story on May 19 claiming that the Crimean Tatar executive representative body, the Mejlis was demanding constitutional changes regarding the status of Crimea including a name change of the peninsula.
![Website screenshot Nezavisimaya Gazeta](http://www.stopfake.org/content/uploads/2016/05/qr1.jpg)
Nezavisimaya gazeta’s claim is false. Crimean Tatars want changes in the Ukrainian constitution regarding the status of their autonomy in Crimea, but they are not calling for a name change.
“Mejlis has proposed that the Ukrainian government secure the status of Crimea in the Ukrainian Constitution as a Crimean Tatar autonomous republic. The point is that Kyiv and Mejlis do not recognize the status of the Russian peninsula, considering it temporarily occupied territory,” writes Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
![Website screenshot de UNIAN](http://www.stopfake.org/content/uploads/2016/05/qr2.jpg)
The leader of the Mejlis, Ukrainian MP Refat Chubarov has advocated this idea in the past, calling for the creation of a working group within the country’s Constitutional Commission to prepare a new constitutional framework for the Crimea Autonomous Republic.
Chubarov, who is a member of President Petro Poroshenko’s block in parliament, has declared that the changes to the Ukrainian constitution regarding Crimea “should be clearly spelled out – that Crimean autonomy is formed on the basis of the rights of the Crimean Tatar people to self-determination as part of the Ukrainian state. ”
President Poroshenko added his support to this initiative on May 18, the day Ukraine commemorates the 1944 Crimean Tatar deportation, noting the need for such a constitutional amendment.
![Website screenshot Liga Novosti](http://www.stopfake.org/content/uploads/2016/05/qr3.jpg)
Neither Mejlis, nor the Ukrainian President are calling for a name change of Crimea.