Officials ashamed of hate speech, plan to take drastic measures

The issue of discrimination has long been not on the agenda of the Culture Ministry of Ukraine, but it should be remedied.

First Deputy Culture Minister of Ukraine Svitlana Fomenko said this at the conference “Two and a half years of conflict: impact on tolerance and acceptance of minorities,” the Human Rights Information Centre correspondent reports.

According to the official, Ukraine, on the one hand, lacks good legislation on the protection of national minorities, on the other hand, there is a problem of implementation of this legislation at the local level.

Deputy Minister drew attention to numerous instances of hate speech in the media, addressed to the vulnerable groups. Primarily, it refers to the internally displaced persons, Roma people, refugees and migrants, members of the LGBT community.

“The Culture Ministry has long been considering its work in terms of ensuring the language rights, has been taking care of the cultural sector. However, the problem of discrimination has never been on the agenda. Now we must actualize the issue of discrimination, oppose to hate speech, racial hatred, etc.,” the Deputy Culture Minister said.

Svitlana Fomenko also noted non-systemic and chaotic approaches to solving problems of national communities and the lack of interagency cooperation.

During the meeting, the participants were shown various video news where hate speech was used by ordinary citizens, representatives of the healthcare sector, local authorities, and even Interior Minister Arsen Avakov.

“I am now ashamed of what I have seen in the video. Such concentration of problems indicates that the efforts of neither the executive bodies, nor the local councils are sufficient to counter the hate speech. Our efforts are also not enough,” Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Valeria Lutkovska said and called on the state authorities and human rights activists to work better.

First Deputy Information Policy Minister of Ukraine Emine Dzhaparova is more optimistic. She is convinced that Ukraine is ready to change.

“Having returned to Crimea, we, Crimean Tatars, were long not enough educated for Ukraine, not able to present ourselves at the public level. Now I’m here as a Crimean Tatar, as an internally displaced person, and the First Deputy Information Policy Minister of Ukraine. Today, the representatives of national minorities may present the ministries, we can occupy high posts. Ukraine is ready to change,” Dzhaparova said.

The official added that the key work of the ministry was to conduct communications strategy that were directly related to reducing intolerance. First of all, it is referred to the IDPs.

“Our strategy has several directions. First, it aims to destroy the negative image of IDPs. Second, to change the attitude of local authorities towards IDPs. The IDPs are not a problem, they are a factor that contributes to community development. Third, to encourage internally displaced persons to realize that they can determine their own future,” Emine Dzhaparova commented.

According to her, it is also planned to create a media platform to, in particular, reduce the level of intolerance and to oppose the hate speech.