Discrimination In Ukraine

Ukraine is a multi-ethnic country that was formerly part of the Soviet Union. Valeriy Govgalenko argues that racism and ethnic discrimination has arguably been a largely fringe issue in the past, but has had a climb in social influence due to ultra-nationalist parties gaining attention in recent years. There have been recorded incidents of violence where the victim's race is widely thought to have played a role, these incidents receive 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". In 2012 the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) reported that "tolerance towards Jews, Russians and Romani appears to have significantly declined in Ukraine since 2000 and prejudices are also reflected in daily life against other groups, who experience problems in accessing goods and services".
From 2006 to 2008, 184 attacks and 12 racially motivated murders took place. In 2009, no such murders were recorded, but 40 racial incidents of violence were reported. It is worth considering that, according to Alexander Feldman, president of the Association of National and Cultural Unions of Ukraine, "People attacked on racial grounds do not report the incidents to the police and police often fail to classify such attacks as racially motivated and often write them off as domestic offence or hooliganism".

A 2010 poll conducted by the showed that some 70 percent of Ukrainians estimates the nation's attitude towards other ethnical minorities as ‘conflict’ and ‘tense’.

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 antisemitic statements or publish antisemitic literature." Discrimination against the Romani community, continuing antisemitism, 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. 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 For instance: in December 2006 racist attacks on foreign students have been reported by the Council of Europe. The council stated that students were 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 Kyiv, 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 Kyiv 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, 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.

Bias-motivated violence has been largely committed against people of African and Asian origin, as well as people from the Middle East.

Discrimination against foreigners

According to a Western human rights organization, asylum seekers, refugees, students and labour migrants are among the victims of bias-motivated violence, 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. During the 2009 flu pandemic in Ukraine in November 2009 the police of Transcarpathia asked the local population to report every instance of meeting or communicating with foreigners, The police explains that the reason for such a request was "the worsening of the epidemiological situation in Transcarpathian Region and the increasing risk of getting ill." The Uzhhorod police removed the request from their website after media drew attention to it.

Discrimination against Russians

The ultra-right nationalist political party Svoboda, marginal on the national scale, often invokes the radical Russophobic rhetoric and has sufficient electoral support to form factions in several municipal and provincial local councils in Western Ukraine. The Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, saw a rise in anti-Russian sentiment with protests nationwide in Ukraine, far right group known as Right Sector saw a surge in popularity. Odessa Clashes which started when a pro-Russian mob of 300 armed with bats and firearms attacked a pro-Ukrainian rally and shot dead two people resulted in the death of 46 pro-Russian activists who were against the Euromaidan movement. After the Ukrainian Revolution the government tried to curb the use of Russian language by banning imports of books from Russia in February, 2017 which had accounted for up to 60% of all titles sold in Ukraine. On May 23, 2017, the Ukrainian parliament approved the law that most broadcast content should be in Ukrainian in order to reduce the amount of Russian speakers. Since then Russian has also been refrained from being taught in schools and many Russian born Ukrainians cannot speak their native language.

Discrimination against Romani

It is alleged that the country's estimated 400,000 Romani people, (government figures were 47,600) faces both governmental and societal discrimination. In October 2006 the European Roma Rights Centre complained to the UN Human Rights Committee about violence against Romani in the country, racial targeting and profiling by police against Romani, discrimination in social programs and employment against Romani, 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 Romani 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 Romani remain current: only 38 percent of Romani 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. In 2012 the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) reported that "Many Roma do not dispose of basic identity documents. This seriously affects their access to social rights as well as the right to vote."

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 Odessa 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.
US department of state Country Report on Human Rights Practices in Ukraine However, in 2012 ECRI stated "government policies themselves at times appear also to ignore the situation of marginalisation and discrimination faced by Roma".

Discrimination against Tatars

In Crimea, native Tatars

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