(photo by Anastasia Vlasova)
Svitlana Zalishchuk
Lawmaker with the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction
The quality of the discussion over human rights has improved. Mostly thanks to the media, which bring up the issue, not keeping it quiet. It’s very positive. I think that every year we’re learning to be a European country. But it became clear after the EuroMaidan Revolution that not everything was going to change in a year.
(photo by Anastasia Vlasova)
Bogdan Globa
Head of the All-Ukrainian Charitable Organization Fulcrum, a Kyiv-based NGO
Poor. We still have a lot of problems to solve. Whichever way you look at it, there are problems everywhere. If we’re talking about the Equality March today, there is the issue of discrimination, the question of hate crimes. Our Criminal Code does not foresee punishment for hate crimes, as there is in the western democratic countries.
(photo by Anastasia Vlasova)
Andreas von Beckerath
Sweden’s ambassador to Ukraine for the last three years
I think Ukraine has made a huge step forward when it comes to human rights, when it comes to democratic reforms. We saw a new labor law passed, which made it illegal to discriminate against sexual minorities, and I think that there have been couple of important reforms in terms of strengthening human rights in Ukraine.
(photo by Anastasia Vlasova)
Anton Ivanov
Activist with the non-governmental Centre UA
Not very good. I’m not a human rights activist, not an expert, but let’s look on what is going on today. I have never seen in my life a single rally with this amount of guards. That shows you something. People’s rights are infringed on according to their (sexual) orientation, views. You need to hire 5,000 armed men to allow people to say they want equal rights.
(photo by Volodymyr Petrov)
Uliana Pcholkina
News Presenter at NewsOne TV
There has been an improvement in the human rights situation. First of all, people have started talking about their rights, they’ve started knowing what their rights are. This is the huge step towards our rights being taken into consideration. We all are equal, all Ukrainians. Not distinguished either by our orientation, or by our special needs, or by color of skin. There are no differences among us.
