70TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MARCH DEPORTATIONS

That this House commemorates the 70th anniversary of the March Deportations in which almost 100,000 men, women and children from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were forcibly deported by the Soviet Union to Gulags in Eastern Russia; notes that the deportations were launched on 25 March 1949 and saw Baltic residents, including some 32,000 from Lithuania, 42,000 from Latvia and 21,000 from Estonia, sent to Soviet forced labour camps and most never returned; further reiterates its belief that the European Court of Human Rights was right to classify the March Deportations as a crime against humanity; stands in solidarity with all of those in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia who lost loved ones to this crime; and vows never to allow an act of such barbarity to take place again.