Racism in Ukraine

Ukraine is a multiethnic and multicultural nation where racism and ethnic discrimination are arguably largely a fringe issue . However, there have been recorded incidents of violence where the victim's race is widely thought to have played a role. Those incidents receive an extensive media coverage and are usually condemned by all mainstream political forces. Human Rights Watch reported that "Racism and xenophobia remain entrenched problems in Ukraine".

Roma children from Dubove (2007)

The latest Hate Crime Survey, conducted by Human Rights First in September, included a stand-alone report on the rise of hate crime in Ukraine. Individuals of non-European origin, immigrants and minorities are most vulnerable to violent attacks, many of which occur in broad daylight. Sizeable Jewish communities and the predominantly Muslim Crimean Tatars are among the targets of bias-motivated crimes. Several Jewish religious leaders have been violently assaulted, and attacks on property and places of worship are commonplace. The Ukrainian Roma communities have been the victims of mob violence in the past. A burgeoning movement of skinheads continues to be responsible for the most violent hate crimes.

Human Rights First notes that monitoring efforts by civil society organizations are limited and mainly focus on the largest metropolitan areas, while the government’s response to the rise in hate crimes has been insufficient and inconsistent. A small group of politicians, including President Yushchenko, has spoken out against racist and xenophobic violence. However, these statements have been undermined by the rhetoric of other key law enforcement officials whose remarks have suggested a denial of the problem.

A report released by Amnesty International in July 2008 warned of an an "alarming rise" in racist attacks in Ukraine. According to the report, more than 60 people were targeted in racist violence in 2007, six of them killed; More than 30 people were victims of racist attacks since the beginning of 2008 and at least four had been killed at the time of the report. Rights advocates are puzzled by the rise in hate crimes but they claim government inaction is partly to blame. They also claim the government aggravates the problem by denying that racism is growing and only acknowledging isolated incidents. Rights groups claim Ukrainian hate groups are inspired by their counterparts in Russia, where minorities are assaulted almost every day. Russian skinheads help the local groups, they say, sharing tips and video clips on how to attack and torture their victims and how to safely leave the crime scene.

Race discrimination

Racially motivated attacks occur in Ukraine while police and courts do little to intervene, the Council of Europe said in a report made public February 2008 in Strasbourg. The report also expressed concern about attacks against rabbis and Jewish students, as well as the vandalism of synagogues, cemeteries and cultural centres. "However, criminal legislation against racially-motivated crimes has not been strengthened and the authorities have not yet adopted a comprehensive body of civil and administrative anti-discrimination laws," the body said. "There have been very few prosecutions against people who make anti-Semitic

statements or publish anti-Semitic literature." Discrimination against the Roma community, continuing anti-Semitism, violence in Crimea and other acts of intolerance against various ethnic groups in Ukraine were singled out in the report by the Council of Europe's racism-monitoring body, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance.

File:Pastor Sunday Adelaja.jpg

Pastor Sunday Adelaja (founder and pastor of the Embassy of God Charismatic church in Kiev) is one of the few public figures from African decent in Ukraine

Skinhead violence against Tatars and Jews is also frequent and police have offered little protection to the different communities, it said. And ECRI asked Ukrainian authorities to step up efforts to fight violence by skinheads against Africans, Asians, and people from the Caucasus and the Middle East For instance: in December 2006 racist attacks on foreign students have been reported by the Council of Europe. The council stated that students where reluctant to report attacks because of police response to these attacks seemed to be inadequate. Many of these incidents are conducted by "skinheads" or neo-Nazis in Kiev, but similar crimes have also been reported throughout the country. In addition to incidents of assault, persons of African or Asian heritage may be subject to various types of harassment, such as being stopped on the street by both civilians and law enforcement officials. Individuals belonging to religious minorities have also been harassed and assaulted in Kiev and throughout Ukraine

Ukraine does not currently have well established movements against illegal immigration or certain ethnic groups that are common in other former Soviet states. As a European country Ukraine is prone to outside influence from the neo-nazi and supremacist movements beyond its borders. For example, in areas of Southern Ukraine that have closer cultural and linguistic ties with Russia a number of neo-nazi groups resemble those in neighbouring Russia.

Since 2005, nongovernmental (NGO) monitors in Ukraine have documented a dramatic rise in violent crimes with a suspected bias motivation. While incidents occurring in Kyiv have been most accurately documented, there is evidence that incidents of violence are taking place throughout the country, including the cities of Cherkasy, Chernivtsi, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Lutsk, Lviv, Mykolaiv, Odessa, Sevastopol, Simferopol, Ternopil, Vinnytsia, and Zhytomyr.

Representatives of the Ministry of Justice and Members of Ukrainian parliament stated that discrimination views and antisocial attitudes are practiced by a minority of the population, by fringe organizations, and by younger generation of Ukrainians; they say they are most alarmed by the younger Ukrainian's attitudes. The fact that, during the 2007 parliamentary elections, the right wing parties espousing xenophobic and racist ideology received very little support from the electorate, also points to the unpopularity of such ideas among the general population.

Roma in Lviv (2007)

Statistics on violent crime motivated by racism and discrimination

There is no government data collection or regular public reporting expressly on violent hate crimes. The most reliable information is produced by NGO and IGO monitoring. Thus, it is impossible to see the full extent of the problem. Human Rights First and Amnesty International released reports on the dramatic rise of hate-motivated violence in Ukraine. Both organizations relied on the nongovernmental monitors and closely collaborated with the Diversity Initiative, a coalition of some 40 NGOs, which was created in April 2007 in response to the unprecedented increase in the number of suspected racially-motivated assaults. The Diversity Initiative is supported by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Discrimination against foreigners

Bias-motivated violence has been largely committed against people of African and Asian origin, as well as people from the Caucasus and the Middle East. Asylum seekers, refugees, and labor migrants are among the victims, which have also included diplomats, expatriate employees of foreign companies, members of visible minorities in Ukraine, and Ukrainians who have assisted hate crime victims. Foreign students, of which there are some forty thousand, have been among the principal victims of hate crimes. Small populations of citizens and immigrants of African origin are highly visible and particularly vulnerable targets of racism and xenophobia. Although relatively few people of African origin reside in Ukraine, the rate of violence against this group has been extraordinary. African refugees, students, visitors, and the handful of citizens and permanent residents of African origin have lived under constant threat of harassment and violence.

Discrimination against Roma

The country's estimated 400,000 Roma people (government figures were 47,600) faces both governmental and societal discrimination. In October 2006 the European Roma Rights Center complained to the UN Human Rights Committee about violence against Roma in the country, racial targeting and profiling by police against Roma, discrimination in social programs and employment against Roma, and the widespread lack of necessary documentation for Roma to enjoy access to social services and protections. In many areas of the country, poverty often forced Romani families to withdraw their children from school. There were numerous reports of Roma being evicted from housing, removed from public transportation, denied public assistance, kicked out of stores, and denied proper medical treatment. According to the Roma Congress of Ukraine, the findings of the 2003 national study on social integration of Roma remain current: only 38 percent of Roma are economically active, 21 percent have permanent employment, and 5 percent have temporary employment, mainly seasonal jobs. Representatives of Romani and other minority groups claimed that police officials routinely ignored, and sometimes abetted, violence against them.

There were some reports that the government was addressing the longstanding problems faced by the Romani community. For example, the Chirikli fund reported in fall 2006 that a court in Odesa reviewed its complaint against a school director who refused to admit a Romani child to school. The court refused to review claims of discrimination but the case was still under review for possible administrative violations as of December. A court in Donetsk refused to accept a similar complaint.

Discrimination against Jews

Further information: History of the Jews in Ukraine

Hasidic Jew in Uman (2007)

As of April 2008, in total, 100 hate crimes were committed since January 2007. One of every five hate crimes in Ukraine since the start of last year was against the Jewish community, the country's security police reported. However, not known how much of those atacks were on a racial base.

Attacks on ethnic minorities are occurring in Ukraine at a record pace, according to the Union of Councils for the Jews in the Former Soviet Union. Ukrainian Jews have been the object of some of the worst government-led persecutions in history, including Tsarist pogroms, Nazi genocide, and Stalin’s antisemitic campaigns. The problem of antisemitism has remained despite massive immigration of Jews to Israel, Europe, and the Untied States following the disintegration of the Soviet Union. In recent years, Ukraine has seen a revival of anti-Jewish prejudice in the form of an increase of antisemitic attacks and incidents.

Discrimination against Tatars

In Crimea, native Tatars feel discriminated due to lack of lands. Conflicts between Tatars and their Slavic neighbors in recent years has led to massed fist fights, vandalizing graveyards and even murders. Ukrainian government is slow in acknowledging the tensions. Crimean Tatars asserted that discrimination by mainly ethnic Russian officials in Crimea deprived them of employment in local administrations and that propaganda campaigns, particularly by Russian Cossacks, promoted hostility against them among other inhabitants of Crimea.

See also

• Racism by country
• Demographics of Ukraine
• LGBT rights in Ukraine
• Interregional Academy of Personnel Management