When two police officers asked Steven Okurut on July 18 to accompany them to a secluded room in a Kharkiv supermarket, Okurut had nothing to fear. His residency permit was valid and Ukrainian police still aren’t equipped with mini-computers to make on-the-spot document checks.
He never thought that he’d leave the grocery store with severely bruised ribs, fractured finger joints, a bloody mouth and head injuries, and virtually cashless.
But when they entered the second-floor room, Okurut said the two officers started accusing the Ugandan national of harboring and trafficking drugs. They proceeded to search him, including his private parts, and even asked him the size of his penis and the origin of his golden wedding band after it slipped off his finger with ease.
Okurut denied the drug accusations and refused to dignify the penis-related question with a response. At one point during the 40-minute ordeal, they started beating and kicking him, sometimes with a rubber baton, he said.
“Do you know where you have come?” one of them asked, adding, “We must punish you, you nigger.”
In between multiple blows to the head, shoulders, ribs and thighs, one of the officers walked out of the room to check if Okurut’s wails can be heard outside the room.
In the end Okurut said the officers took $315 and Hr 200, leaving him with just enough money for a taxi.
“This is an age-old method [by the police] of extorting money from Africans and Asians,” said Charles Asante-Yeboa, president of the African Center, a non-profit organization that works to improve the lives of Africans in Ukraine and in other international communities. “They first accuse you of drug dealing, of possession, and then they search you and take whatever they like.”
According, Asante-Yeboa, many Africans comply with police requests to accompany them for document checks since they believe in the genuineness of their documents. “And the police normally don’t fear the consequences of their actions when freely targeting Africans because Africans in Ukraine are a group that lack adequate social support,” he said.
The local Kharkiv police would not comment on Okurut’s case and a local prosecutor’s office said that it will not provide comment until a preliminary, 10-day fact-finding investigation launched on July 20 ends.
More than just a problem with police
Racial profiling and non-violent harassment by police as well as attacks against foreigners with non-Slavic appearances by skin-head, and other ultra-right wing groups have become an issue of growing concern as Ukraine readies to host an estimated 400,000 visitors during the Euro-2012 soccer tournament.
International organizations like the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, African Center, International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the U.S. Embassy’s inter-agency Overseas Security Advisories Council, among others, have been keeping tabs on racially motivated attacks.
“We’re certainly concerned about xenophobia in Ukrainian society, it needs to be addressed, especially as the year 2012 approaches,” said Daiva Dilkelyte, head of program support at the International Organization for Migration in Kyiv.
A 2010 poll conducted by Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies showed that some 70 percent of Ukrainians estimates the nation’s attitude towards other ethnical minorities as ‘conflict’ and ‘tense’.
According to Interior Ministry data, crimes committed against foreigners have tripled between 2008 and 2009 to 1,249 incidents, 36 percent of which were against foreigners not from the former Soviet Union.
While crimes against foreigners are on the rise, racially motivated attacks appear to be falling. According to IOM, there were 26 racially motivated attacks in 2009, 37 less than in 2008. Foreign students are most often victims of attacks. There are currently 45 thousand foreign students in Ukraine, according to the IOM.
Avoiding trouble
But this doesn’t mean the trend isn’t potentially there, Asante-Yeboa said. He said foreigners have learned to avoid dangerous places and have altered their lifestyles to limit running into abusive police or organized racist groups.
“People are moving around less, they avoid all modes of public transport for fear of being attacked, they travel in groups but we still see pockets of incidents in Kyiv, Vinnytsia and Kharkiv,” said Asante-Yeboa.
He also added that organizations like his have stepped up awareness and education campaigns and seminars in Ukraine along with other civic actions like the celebrity movement SOS! Racism! that has had public figures like the high-profile TV talk show host Savik Shuster taking part. Shuster is Jewish.
The U.S. Overseas Security Advisories Council made a similar verdict: “Over the past few years, hate crimes directed against non-Slavic and religious minorities have generally increased, although the number of reported incidents was down in 2009 compared to previous years…an unexpected drop which may or may not be a long-term trend.”
Some foreigners have gotten used to frequent police stops. Terrel Starr, an African-American, said the police in Kyiv have stopped him 19 times and detained him once in less than one year.
“When I see a police officer eyeing me and getting ready to approach me, I already whip out my passport,” Starr said.
And when he his stopped, Starr said the police often treat him disrespectfully: “I feel like they strip me of my dignity in the way they talk to me.”
The Fulbright scholar said he avoids the area around Kontraktova Ploshcha, where he almost was attacked by skin heads. The white-supremacist 88 group reportedly roams this neighborhood, where the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy is located.
Besides changing lifestyles, often to the detriment of maintaining quality of life habits and their pocket books – many who avoid public transportation ride in taxis – foreigners often face discrimination when securing housing.
Government inaction
Official response has been mostly formal and declarative combined with concrete action. In May 2007, the Ministry of Internal Affairs developed a plan to combat racism and xenophobia. And in September 2008, the Ministry set up a Department for Ethnic Crimes.
Meanwhile, the SBU also set up a department to combat racism and xenophobia, whose main task is to investigate and prevent crimes by organized racist groups.
“The authorities have recognized the issue and have shown an earnest desire to understand the phenomenon of xenophobia,” said Dilkelyte of IOM.
But after President Viktor Yanukovych was elected in February, things began to change. In March, the new interior minister, Anatoliy Mohyliov, liquidated a special civic council comprised of local and international civil society groups attached to the ministry that monitors human rights abuses and also an entire department in charge of monitoring human rights activities.
The interior ministry does have an action plan approved through 2012 to “counteract racism and xenophobia”.
“If they follow through on this plan, then the situation will improve in the right direction,” said Oleh Martynenko, the former head of the disbanded monitoring department and author of the action plan. “For now, racial profiling among the police, police corruption and extortion continues to be a problem, they need to be trained and educated.”
It’s unclear how Okurut’s incident in Kharkiv will play out. While Okurut is a well-known public figure – he is a member of the pan-African Chornobryvtsi group that performs in Ukrainian – he has filed reports with the local police, prosecutor’s office and a human rights group, experts said that often serious investigations are almost never undertaken.
“Judging from our experience and based on our records it doesn’t matter if a person is a public figure because previous incidents were not seriously investigated, the authorities have never taken these investigations very seriously, although we appreciate the efforts of police, their attitude toward migrants are not improving,” said Asante-Yeboa of the African Center.
Kyiv Post staff writer Mark Rachkevych can be reached at [email protected].
