The "Letter of Seventeen" (Russian: «Письмо семнадцати») was a wildly unpopular open letter to the exiled Crimean Tatar community in published in Lenin Bayrağı in March 1968 condemning desire for right of return. Crimean Tatar civil rights activist Yuri Osmanov referred to it as the "letter of national traitors". The condescending letter opened with downplaying their major struggles and discrimination in Asia, urging their fellow Crimean Tatars to accept the situation and take root in Central Asia rather than supporting the right of return to Crimea that many Crimean Tatars dreamed of. In the middle, it claimed the September 1967 "rehabilitation" decree "radically solved their national question"; however, in reality, the widely despised decree, which initially confused some Crimean Tatars