Seventeen people suffer racist attacks in Ukraine this year

In Ukraine, the cases of hate-motivated violence on ethnic and racial grounds are investigated ineffectively while almost half of the victims do not appeal to the law enforcement agencies.

According to the expert on combating racism and xenophobia at the International Organization for Migration in Ukraine Yana Salakhova, the “Diversity Initiative” network recorded ten cases of violence with suspected racial motivation injuring 17 people for the first ten months of 2015.

Among the aggrieved people are 13 foreigners from Nigeria, Jordan, Afghanistan, Syria, Ghana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (76% of all victims) as well as citizens of Ukraine of Tajik and Jewish ethnic origin, Muslim confession, and mixed origin.

The incidents were recorded in Dnipropetrovsk (2), Kyiv (4) Odesa (1), Kharkiv (4).

Nine victims went to the police, one case was closed. Seven victims refused to resort to the law enforcement bodies. The information about the report on one case is missing.

“The main feature of the hate crimes is that an attacker expresses intolerance not so much towards the individual victim, but to the entire community because of its characteristics,” Yana Salakhova said. “That is why the hate crimes are particularly socially dangerous and require monitoring and thorough investigation to prevent the onset of early social or ethnic conflict.”

Lawyer Yulia Naumenko, who represents the hate crime victims, claimed that the monitoring of the NGOs did not reflect the full picture of such offenses.

It happens so due to the problems of qualification of crimes motivated by racial intolerance, poor quality of the investigation, the inability of the police to work with such cases, as well as due to the fact that victims often refuse to bring the case to the end or do not resort to police at all.

This was confirmed by the recent cases of beating of a minor boy at the “Pozniaky” metro station and beating of black fans at the NSC “Olympiysky” in Kyiv.

According to representative of the African community NGO “Justice and Protection” Marianna Nan Nkiavete, the racist attacks in Ukraine still remain unpunished, and the African community suffers from threats and intimidation by the police.

As for the anti-Semitism and the anti-Semitic vandalism in Ukraine, the situation is relatively stable and the number of cases is much smaller than in previous years, said Tetiana Bezruk, the co-coordinator of the Monitoring group for the rights of national minorities in Ukraine. In 2015, only one case of physical violence with the use of anti-Semitic rhetoric has been recorded – in Kharkiv on March 22. Thirteen anti-Semitic vandalism incidents have been recorded by the monitoring group in Kyiv, Odesa, Ivano-Frankivsk, Mykolayiv, Poltava region, Zaporizhzhia region and Dnipropetrovsk region.

Six acts of vandalism against the “Menorah” memorial at the Babi Yar, dedicated to the memory of the Jews killed during the Holocaust, were committed in January-September 2015 in Kyiv.

“The last case, recorded on September 13, caused a great wave of anxiety in the Jewish community. The criminal proceeding over that offense was opened under Part 1, Article 296 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine,” Tetiana Bezruk said.

In addition, the leaders of the self-proclaimed “DPR” and “LPR” often use the anti-Semitic rhetoric, commenting on the activities of the Ukrainian top-leadership.

The “Without Borders” project of the “Social Action” Center elaborated the guidelines for the hate crime victims. The victims may call +38 093 035 15 15 hotline to get advice and legal consultation.