Human rights activists drew the EU's attention to Ukrainian anti-Semitism
The legislative practice of Ukraine actually works to encourage anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic vandalism.
This was stated by a representative of the European Center for Democracy during the 14th working meeting of the OSCE HDIM, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“It is of particular concern that the proportion of crimes motivated by anti-Semitism and other crimes directed against ethnic minorities is growing. However, it is one thing when the state fights these phenomena and another when it indirectly encourages them.
Encouragement can be done in two ways: either by sabotaging the investigation of crimes, or by passing laws that indirectly encourage such crimes,” the speaker said.
According to him, in 2018 in Ukraine, out of 82 episodes of crimes motivated by ethnic hatred, there are still no decisions on the 71st case.
“This is one problem, and the second is the legislative practice of Ukraine. I can’t call anything other than encouraging anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic vandalism the 2015 Ukrainian law on the legal status and honoring the memory of participants in the struggle for the independence of Ukraine in the twentieth century, which not only declares the executioners of the Jewish people heroes, but also introduces liability for denying their supposedly positive role in the struggle for independence. In fact, after the adoption of the law, we can talk about the revival of state anti-Semitism in Ukraine, albeit in an indirect form. Is it any wonder that the country leads in the number of acts of anti-Semitic vandalism?
Monuments are erected to the executioners, which cannot but affect the growth of anti-Semitism in the public consciousness. After all, monuments are erected not only to Bandera and Shukhevych - the leaders of Ukrainian nationalist organizations, whom the Institute of National Memory of Ukraine recently equated with the greatest people of the twentieth century, along with Churchill, Roosevelt and De Gaulle - monuments are erected to people who personally killed Jews: Vasily Vakha, Ivan Butkovsky, Yaroslav Stetsko and many others. Moreover, monuments are often erected in places of mass extermination of the Jewish population,” said the human rights activist.
“Now imagine that the Ukrainian man in the street knows that those who deny the heroism of these figures face criminal prosecution, but at the same time he knows that these figures killed Jews. He also knows that those who call for multilingualism in multi-ethnic Ukraine face up to 10 years in prison for attempting to overthrow the constitutional order, in accordance with the recently adopted law on ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language. What thoughts appear in his head? – the speaker added.
He also called on the Ukrainian authorities to submit to the Venice Commission for examination the law on the legal status and honoring the memory of participants in the struggle for the independence of Ukraine in the twentieth century and the law on ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language for compliance with international law on the rights of national minorities.
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