Kharkiv police not open case over attack for homophobic motives

A man became a victim of attack and bullying by the unknowns being suspected of belonging to the LGBT community.

According to the Kharkiv Human Rights Group website, a Kharkiv resident V. became a victim of attack and bullying by a group of unknown persons on November 6, 2014 and was forced to call the police asking to open criminal proceedings.

The human rights activists believe that the man was bullied only because of suspecting him of being gay and attacked for homophobic motives in a brutal way.

“A group of unknown to me people bullied me, assaulted my dignity and honor, beat me to make me do things completely contrary to my will. They also forced me to admit that I am allegedly a gay,” the victim describes.

In addition, the attackers poured oil on man’s cap and jacket, then took his cap off, and poured disinfectant on his head, capturing all on video. They also forced the man to take his passport out of the bag, and videotaped personal information of the man without his permission, threatening to release video on the Internet.

The man filed crime report to the Kharkiv district police station, but the criminal proceedings were not opened. He filed the repeated report of November 27, 2014, but no reaction followed. Then it was reported that further examination had been terminated.

The victim then addressed the human rights activists. Lawyer Roman Likhachov, head of the Chuhuiv Human Rights Group, member of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group, helped to draw up a complaint about inaction of police. December 23, 2014, the court obliged the law enforcement agencies to enter the data on offence in the unified register of pre-trial investigations. However, the police ignored the court order. The criminal proceedings were opened only after a complaint with the demand to do so had been filed to the prosecutor’s office of Kharkiv region.