Discrimination against certain minorities in occupied Crimea and in the occupied part of Donbas has significantly increased, human rights activists have said in a report entitled "In the Crosscurrents: Addressing Discrimination and Inequality in Ukraine."
“In the occupied territories – in Crimea, in the territories, controlled by Russia-supported separatists, discrimination against certain groups has increased significantly, as stated in the report: against the Crimean Tatars, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT), Roma and religious minorities, which are staying in these occupied territories,” Executive Director of the Equal Rights Trust Dimitrina Petrova said while presenting the report at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Aug. 14.
She said that “on the contrary, protection of vulnerable groups is improving” in the rest part of Ukraine, Petrova added.
She said that the Roma remain the most disadvantaged and discriminated group in Ukraine.
Discrimination against the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine wasn’t the reason for the annexation of Crimea and the military conflict in eastern Ukraine, Petrova said.
“Our goal is to establish if the ethnic and language discrimination against Russian-speaking people was the reason of this war. We have found there was no such a thing… This conflict is in the other category, it is what some politicians would call a hybrid war,” Petrova explained.
“When the military conflict began, Crimea was annexed and eastern Ukraine was involved in the military conflict, the ethnic and language differences started to grow. The war wasn’t caused by these differences, but it started to create them,” Petrova said.
Ukrainian laws mainly comply with the current European standards, but there are several gaps and flaws, Petrova added.
“All EU member states expressively and unconditionally prohibit discrimination [based] on gender identity, sexual orientation. Ukrainian laws have nothing like that. Why? Because there is huge resistance,” Petrova said.
