Kyiv homosexuals declared churches their main enemy
The number of violations of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights in Ukraine decreased in 2020, but the number of attacks by the far right increased.
Andrei Kravchuk, an expert at the Our World LGBT Center, stated this at a press conference in Kyiv during the presentation of the annual report on the situation with sexual minorities in Ukraine, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
So, if in 2019 there were 369 cases of attacks, discrimination and other violations of LGBT rights, then in 2020 there were only 188. Kravchuk explained this by the influence of the pandemic and quarantine restrictions. However, he noted that the activity of the main opponents of LGBT - right-wing radical and religious organizations - on the contrary, has increased. If in 2019 there were 11 cases of attacks on LGBT centers and actions by far-right groups, then in 2020 there were already 24.
According to the speaker, gays are beaten mainly by the far-right group “Tradition and Order,” sometimes in company with other far-right groups. LGBT people in Odessa and Kharkov especially suffer from radicals.
It is noted that in 2020, more than half of the offenses - 106 - were insults, humiliation of human dignity and threats. In 69 cases we are talking about physical violence of varying severity.
It was also said that the police were not doing a better job of protecting LGBT people. As stated by lawyer and legal adviser to the Public Justice Center and representative of the Ukrainian Helsinki Union for Human Rights in Odessa, Yulia Lesnaya, law enforcement officers do not understand the importance of correctly classifying attacks on LGBT people as hate crimes and believe that the motive in such cases cannot be proven.
Law enforcement officers do not automatically register most statements from victims about a crime in the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations, although they should. Such messages are often considered in the order of ordinary requests from citizens and mainly by local inspectors.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs developed a bill to criminalize crimes of intolerance, in particular based on sexual orientation and gender identity, but never submitted it to the Cabinet of Ministers.
Kravchuk said that the attempt to consider three parliamentary bills on this topic in the Verkhovna Rada last year also ended unsuccessfully - they were rejected.
In addition, last year the first lawsuit by a same-sex couple was filed against Ukraine in the European Court of Human Rights. The coordinator of the Our World center and his partner want to tie the knot in a legal marriage or at least a registered civil partnership, but in Ukraine their relationship is not considered a marriage or a civil partnership. “Our World” sent an application to the ECHR back in 2014, and this year Ukraine will have to provide a response. Gays are convinced that they will be able to bend Ukraine into adopting a law on same-sex civil partnerships - their foreign brothers in misfortune have already managed to achieve the same from Italy.
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