Attacks against the Roma community have become disturbingly common in Ukraine since the start of 2018.
On Saturday 23rd June, a group of young people stormed into a Roma camp in the city of Lviv in Western Ukraine, tearing down tents and charging at residents with knives. The attack left 24 year old David Popp dead and four others injured, including a mother who was stabbed defending her 10 year-old son.
Just a few days ago, a Roma woman was found dead with her throat cut in the town of Berehove in Western Ukraine.
According to the police, the Lviv attackers are involved in an organisation called ‘Sober and angry youth’, which represents itself using symbols from the far-right Misanthropic Division.
In the past two months alone, at least six attacks against Roma families in Ukraine have been reported. In June, National Druzhyna, a far right militia, destroyed a Roma camp with axes and sledgehammers, and threatened to ‘force’ them out with a mob. In April, a member of the far right group C14, posted a video on the group’s Facebook page showing members setting fire to makeshift homes of the Roma community in Kyiv, forcing around 15 families to flee.
For decades, Roma people have emigrated from Transcarpathia to Ukraine in search of employment.
Ukrainian law enforcement has come under fierce criticism for its lack of action in response to the attacks.
Vyacheslav Likhachev, a Kyiv-based expert on right-wing groups in Ukraine and Russia, writes: “In the last few months, extremist groups have become increasingly active. The most disturbing element of their recent show of force is that so far it has gone fully unpunished by the authorities. Their activities challenge the legitimacy of the state, undermine its democratic institutions, and discredit the country’s law enforcement agencies.”
On 14 June, Washington D.C-based think tank Freedom House, along with other Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, wrote a joint letter to the Ukrainian government expressing their concern in a about the rise in violent incidents initiated by far right groups and the police inaction.
‘Hiding under a veneer of patriotism and what they describe as “traditional values”, members of these groups have been vocal about their contempt for and intent to harm […] others who hold views that differ from their own,’ wrote the organisations.
Following the Lviv attack, police detained two teenagers and arrested six others, who are now awaiting a court ruling, but perpetrators of the previous attacks have not been brought to justice.
‘In five out of the six cases, we have not seen a proper investigation. Law enforcement call most of these cases ‘hooliganism’, not ‘hate crimes’. We’re very much concerned by this situation,’ said Zola Kondur, the human rights activist and representative of the Kyiv-based Roma Coalition, in an interview with Hromadske.
In response to the April attack, the Head of the Kyiv Police, Andriy Kryshchenko, claimed that they had not received any complaints of violence toward the Roma. But when a video went viral, showing families with small children running from masked men throwing stones and spraying gas canisters in the direction, the Kyiv police swiftly changed their tune. That same day they launched as investigation into the possible infringement of those families’ human rights, and described C14’s action as ‘medieval savagery’ in an official statement.
According to Amnesty, there have been at least 30 attacks in recent months by far right groups that have targeted not only Roma families but also women rights defenders, LGBTIQ and left-wing activists.
Human rights organisations have also criticised authorities for providing financial assistance to far right groups. The government has recently given C14 a Youth and Sports Ministry grant of $16,800 for their ‘national-patriotic education projects’.
Halya Coynash, a member of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (KHPG), argues: ‘[T]here were and remain compelling grounds for withdrawing these shockingly misallocated grants.
You need only look to the large number of Ukrainians who feel understandably threatened by C14.’