The far-right representatives disrupted the discussion in Kyiv about the impunity of racially-motivated attacks upon Roma
On May 27 representatives of the far-right organization “Unknown Patriot” disrupted a discussion at the Ukrainian Crisis Media Centre on the impunity of attacks upon roma people.
As reported by the expert of the Human Rights Center ZMINA Vyacheslav Likhachev, who was one of those speakers at the discussion.
During the event, Mr. Likhachev covered the trends with attacks on roma people. He reminded more than a year has passed since the beginning of a wave of assaults on Roma people and their temporary settlements.
23-year-old David Pope was killed at one of such attacks in Lviv on June 23, 2018. Four people were injured during the assault, including a 10-year-old boy and his mother. Other crimes happened in Kyiv and Ternopil. Some attackers openly boasted with their actions in social media, others streamed assaults live on Facebook.
“Despite the loud promises of the leadership of Ukraine’s law enforcement agencies and the demands of human rights activists, the international community, nobody has been faced criminal prosecution and found guilty for crimes, except for the last attack in Lviv. There is an investigators’ inability to identify and adequately classify the motives of hatred crimes, in particular, in the case of the Lviv attack”, said the head of the Monitoring Group on the Rights of National Minorities Mr. Likhachev.
Konstantin Tarasenko, the head of the Office of Human Rights Protection at the National Police, had to present the state of the investigations, but the participants and guests of the discussion could not hear his speech. Тhe representatives of ultra-right groups began to scream the speakers in the hall, arguing that all roma are pocket thieves.
Several young men mentioned they were representatives of the “Unknown Patriot” organization. Another aggressive man who as he stated to be a veteran of Azov Battalion and an employee of a private security firm “Life Safety” took out of the bag a knife, an ax and two bottles of whiskey. He put them on the floor saying that it is evidence of the criminal activity of the Roma.
