It’s criminal case, not just hooliganism

#FeelYourRights

We continue publishing the best stories of our readers sent for the #FeelYourRights contest. Please, pay attention to the story of Halyna Uzu.

Ukraine is our country, Kyiv is our city! I tell this to face of the pack of jackals, who having wrapped in the flag of our country and tattooed their dirty stunted bodies with the tridents, think they can decide who is Ukrainian, and who is not.

These skinhead bastards, wearing black T-shirts and ankle boots, cannot be confused with anyone. It is they who do the Nazi salute and shout ghastly “Death to the enemies!” and “Ukraine is for Ukrainians” every time they see a dark-skinned man, my husband, my children.

They, these people, are mostly children by nature, they should have something to pin faith to. Since they lacked knowledge and experience, they have chosen the Nazi ideology, the ideology of destruction, humiliation, and death. They have always been, but they were mostly hiding in doorways and basements as almost no one gave them food in material or moral sense. Unfortunately, now is another time and they have seen the light.

This story happened to my eldest son, David, when our big family arrived in Kyiv fleeing from our war-torn hometown. We witnessed another war. Kyiv, which we had always loved and visited happily, did not welcome us this time.

We, the “refugees” in our own country, have had a rough time already. However, there have also been people who think it useful to make claims that we are from Donetsk and it’s bad, that we have too many children, and now that we are too dark-skinned for the Kyiv community.

In August of this year, my 16-year-old son returned from work in the evening. He saw, or rather heard those guys in the subway. They walked the crowd and wanted everybody to see and hear them. They were young enough, green. There were girls with them, someone’s daughters, future mothers. When they entered a subway car with my son, one of them, boldly and blatantly, not being ashamed of many passengers, addressed my son on the opposite side of the car: “Hey, monkey, will eat a banana?“

One of the passengers, an elderly woman, whispered to my son, “Boy, do not pay attention to them, they are crazy!” The guys instead shouted the Nazi slogans and shook the car. The other passengers did not react.

A bully did not stop and continued provoking the conflict: “Hey, monkey, we’ll go out and give you a banana.”

At the subway station, where my son left, the crowd of those guys surrounded my son, and a few people out of the crowd began to beat him. The girls, who were with those guys, were watching it with interest. They were watching silently how five boys were beating my son and, probably, were proud of their friends…

Our subway station is always rather busy and it’s just a sea of people during the peak hours.

None of the passers-by intervened. None! These thoughts make my hair stand on end. Why do people, showing such unprecedented unity lately, have suddenly offered unanimous indifference?

A witness to the beating, whom we lately found on social networks, admitted: “I’m sorry for not intervening then. No one could. You should have seen how they were beating him, it was really scary!“

I imagine with horror what my son felt in those minutes and what a nightmare and humiliation he experienced. Those bastards, who were beating my son, are still being searched because Kyiv subway does not have surveillance cameras and the station policemen did not fulfill their duties properly.

Currently, this case is being dealt with by the subway police and the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights. We managed to requalify the punitive article in this case from hooliganism with light bodily injuries to the article protecting human rights and dignity, being a huge step forward for us and for the whole country. I believe that we try to make our country better and fairer in such a way.

I am proud that my son knows and believes that he must defend his rights, that he does not swallow the humiliation but remains a person and a he-man in every situation.