You're reading: Racially motivated attacks on the rise

Viktor is a Ukrainian citizen with a successful business, a wife and four children, whose life was shattered in April when he was beaten savagely on a subway train. Viktor, 45, wasn’t assaulted for his wallet or his watch, or even his support of a political group or soccer team.

He was attacked because his surname is Igbokvum and he is black.

For people like Igbokvum, it is becoming increasingly dangerous to live in Ukraine. Reported incidents of racially motivated attacks are becoming more frequent yet still often go ignored by police, according to international organizations and human rights activists.

Igbokvum came to Ukraine from Nigeria 18 years ago and is now a Ukrainian citizen who runs his own business selling jeans and sneakers.

“I have many friends and acquaintances who were attacked because they were black,” Igbokvum said. “Somehow I was lucky before and now it happened to me as well.”

“So far this year eight cases of suspected racially motivated attacks were reported to us. We are currently in the process of verification. In comparison, for the whole of 2010 only six cases of violent attacks were reported,” said Manfred Profazi, head of the International Organization for Migration in Ukraine.

Igbokvum came to Ukraine from Nigeria 18 years ago and is now a Ukrainian citizen who runs his own business selling jeans and sneakers.

“I have many friends and acquaintances who were attacked because they were black,” Igbokvum said. “Somehow I was lucky before and now it happened to me as well.”

The beating of Igbokvum was classified by law enforcers as “hooliganism,” despite his attackers shouting racist slurs as they beat him with their fists.

Igbokvum came to Ukraine from Nigeria 18 years ago and is now a Ukrainian citizen who runs his own business selling jeans and sneakers.

“I have many friends and acquaintances who were attacked because they were black,” Igbokvum said. “Somehow I was lucky before and now it happened to me as well.”

The attack on Igbokvum drew attention from the public and police after a witness uploaded the video on the Internet. Experts say most of similar attacks go either unreported or inadequately investigated by police.

On March 24, an Indian and a Pakistani were beaten on Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square). A criminal case was not open because they did not see faces of their attackers.
Another citizen of India, who is employed at the Indian Embassy in Kyiv, was attacked near his apartment on April 10.

Many Ukrainian police officers are intolerant themselves, human rights activists said. “The police are one of the sources of racism in Ukraine,” said Dmytro Groisman from Vinnytsya Human Rights Group.

Groisman cites the case of Firdousi Safarov, an Azeri who was beaten by the police in Mohyliv Podilsky of Vinnytsya Oblast.

After being detained on April 2, Safarov was taken to a hospital with concussion and bruises after a few hours in the police department.

Police says he resisted detention; the case is now investigated by Vinnytsya prosecutor.

Human Rights Watch also said Ukrainian authorities are putting less effort than before in fighting hate crimes.

According to its 2010 report, authorities stopped monitoring of hate crimes, which it had started in 2008.

Despite criticism, police say statistics are improving as not a single case under the hate crime article of the criminal code. Human rights activists said the positive figures are a smokescreen, achieved by classifying hate crimes as “hooliganism.”

“Back in 2008-2009 there was a plan to fight racism, and cooperation between police and prosecutors on hate crimes was established. They worked with human rights activists as well. Now, we are not even aware of any hate crimes monitor and do not have access to any information,” said Iryna Fedorovych from the Without Borders project.

Despite criticism, police say statistics are improving as not a single case under the hate crime article of the criminal code.

Human rights activists said the positive figures are a smokescreen, achieved by classifying hate crimes as “hooliganism.”

“There is no understanding among police and prosecutors that hate crimes are not just crimes against a person. They are crimes that imply an ideology which undermines the social structure,” said Vyacheslav Lihachov from the Congress of National Communities, a nongovernmental organization that has monitored hate crimes since 2006.

Despite criticism, police say statistics are improving as not a single case under the hate crime article of the criminal code.

Human rights activists said the positive figures are a smokescreen, achieved by classifying hate crimes as “hooliganism.”

Rights activists say police part of the problem.

Following are racially motivated attacks recorded by Diversity Initiative between January and April:
(Diversity Initiative, IOM, UNHCR)

In January
(date not given), several students from Angola were beaten in Dnipropetrovsk;

On March 8
, two foreign students from Nigeria were attacked by a group of 15 young men near Kharkivska metro station in Kyiv. Policemen detained two youngsters but later released them;

On March 17
, a student from an Arab country was attacked on Velyka Vasylkivska Street in Kyiv;

On March 18
, a Somali asylum-seeker was attacked by three drunken males on a suburban train in Kyiv Oblast;

On March 24
, a group of seven Ukrainian youths attacked two foreigners, a Pakistani and an Indian, in the heart of Kyiv near the National Conservatory. The group didn’t attempt to steal money or
other valuables;

On March 26
, two unknown persons attacked a student from Nigeria in Dnipropetrovsk. The student was returning to his dormitory when he received three knife wounds in his shoulders and neck;

On April 2
, two young men attacked a Ukrainian citizen of Nigerian descend in a metro carriage between the metro stations Khreschchatik and Arsenalna in Kyiv and beat him;

On April 2
, two more attacks were reported on Nigerians in Ternopil and Kharkiv. The reports are currently under verification;

On April 10
, a staff member from the Indian Embassy in Kyiv was attacked by a young man wearing a white face mask.

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Kyiv Post staff writer Svitlana Tuchynska can be reached at [email protected].