A record number of attacks on minorities has taken place in the first three months of the year, according to UCSJ's Kiev monitor Vyacheslav Likhachyov. Updating earlier monthly reports, Mr. Likhachyov collected a comprehensive list of attacks since the beginning of the year, totaling 44 victims, two of whom were murdered.

In most of these cases, police have not detained any suspects, and even when they do, hate crimes charges are rarely applied. However, racism is a difficult motive to prove, and some of these attacks may have stemmed from different motives. On the other hand, most victims of hate crimes are socially marginal people who are unlikely to report attacks on them to the police, and without a systematic effort by the government, the media, and other NGOs, there is no way to precisely measure the number of attacks on minorities that have taken place so far this year.

Mr. Likhachyov ended his extensive and grim report with a note of hope. Two trials in Kiev ended in April with the conviction of suspects under rarely applied hate crimes statutes. The convictions were only the second and third times in Ukraine's post-Soviet history that Article 161 ("actions aimed at the incitement of ethnic hatred") were successfully applied in a hate crimes case.

On January 2, a young man assaulted an Asian man, presumably from Vietnam, in Kiev. Police detained the assailant, who admitted that he was a neo-Nazi and was motivated to attack his victim out of ethnic hatred. That same day in Kiev, two youths who looked like neo-Nazis attacked an Angolan refugee near the Dorozhichi metro station. The assailants were armed with a gun and a baseball bat.

On January 5 in Kiev, two people attacked the son of a foreign diplomat near a restaurant on Tereshchenkovskaya Street. The assailants reportedly followed their victim for several hours before striking.

On January 10 in Kiev, over a dozen young men attacked the head of the city's African Center, Charles Asante, near the Shulyavskaya metro station. The victim, a citizen of Ghana, was admitted to the hospital in serious condition after suffering stab wounds from knives and broken bottles.

That same day in Lviv, a youth attacked a black man with a baseball bat inside the Klondike pizzeria. The restaurant is located on the first floor of a dormitory where many foreigners who attend Lviv Polytechnic live. Students there say that racist attacks near the dormitory are not uncommon.

On January 11 in Kiev, around 10 assailants attacked an African-American basketball player while screaming racist abuse; the victim alleged that he ran to a police car for help, but that the officers drove off, leaving him to be attacked again. Police are not investigating the incident as a hate crime. More details on UCSJ's web site at: http://www.fsumonitor.com/stories/011408Ukraine.shtml

That same day in Kiev, a doctor asked the police for help to treat a citizen of China who was attacked on the street sometime around New Years Eve. The victim himself did not report the incident. Finally, on January 11 in Kiev two men dressed in a paramilitary style beat up an Angolan refugee near his home.

On January 12 in Kiev, two youths attacked a citizen of the Ivory Coast near the Levoberezhnaya metro station. The victim studies at the Kiev National Economic University. Police detained two suspects and charged them with "hooliganism.

On January 16, the Pechersky District Court of Kiev sentenced a man to two years in prison for distributing literature that called for re-establishing the Tsarist monarchy and the mass murder of Jews. He was charged not with hate speech, but under an article of the criminal code that prohibits undermining the integrity of the state.

Shortly before a planned January 20 demonstration by the small Ukrainian National Labor Party and two neo-Nazi gangs, the city of Kiev officially banned the rally, citing the antisemitic content of web postings that the organizers used to advertise the rally.

On January 23 in Kiev, a group of neo-Nazis attacked migrant workers at a market near the Lisova metro station.

On January 24 in Dnepropetrovsk, four people assaulted a rabbi while screaming antisemitic abuse. More details on UCSJ's web site at: http://www.fsumonitor.com/stories/012808Ukraine.shtml

That same day in Kiev, a Nigerian was attacked in the entranceway to his apartment building, and a group of 6-7 people attacked three Chinese, one of whom had to spend a week in the hospital after suffering serious injury to his eye and losing consciousness.

On January 25, in Nikolaev, a group of youths attacked Nigerian students who study at the local ship-building university. The attackers yelled racist abuse at the Nigerians, who ran off and called the police. Police detained three suspects, but let them off with only an administrative charge (most likely a fine).

That same day, the local SBU (former KGB) announced that it had issued a warning to four youths who had organized a gang to attack "non-Slavs" and were gathering money in order to buy a gun. Meanwhile, on the evening of January 25, police in Kiev detained a man while he tried to paint antisemitic graffiti on a Kiev synagogue. The suspect claimed someone had paid him to commit the crime and was charged with "hooliganism" rather than a hate crime.

On January 27, unknown people murdered a citizen of the Congo, prompting a statement of concern from the UNHCR about increasing violence against refugees in Ukraine.

Also on January 27 in Kiev, a group of youths attacked a refugee from Nigeria and another from Congo at a bus stop near the Troeshchinsky Market. One of the victims suffered from a broken skull.

On January 31, a citizen of Libya was kidnapped by a Kiev cab driver, taken to a forest, and assaulted by a group of men who stole his documents.

In early February, a citizen of Sierra Leone was attacked in Kiev.

On February 2, three separate attacks on minorities took place in Kiev. Four young men attacked a Spaniard with a taser near the University metro station, knocking him to the ground and kicking him multiple times. The victim sought medical attention. Two young men attacked a Nigerian near the Shulyavka metro station.

Later that same day, three youths attacked two foreign students near their dormitory. The students' friends heard the attack and came to their aid, holding the assailants until the police arrived. While investigators are focusing on jealousy as the motive for the attack, one of the victims reportedly identified an assailant as a participant in multiple racist assaults last year.

To their credit, on February 4, police announced the detention of four college students in relation to a January attack on a 42 year old citizen of Ghana in Kiev. It is not clear what motive investigators are ascribing to the attackers.

Unfortunately, that same day, Ukraine's minister of justice Nikolai Onishchuk continued a pattern of denial when it comes to racist violence by some Ukrainian officials. In a meeting with Ake Petersen, a Council of Europe official, Mr. Onishchuk reportedly denied that there is a pattern of racist violence in Ukraine. "Nowadays one can only speak about separate incidents, each of which is being carefully investigated," the minister said.

On February 9, in the village of Nizhnegorsky (Crimean Republic), vandals damaged over 200 gravestones in a Crimean Tatar cemetery. The vandals were particularly determined, killing the cemetery's guard dog and destroying part of the fence. Investigators detained two suspects from a far-right Cossack organization that has clashed with Crimean Tatars in the past, but so far are only charging them with grave desecration rather than a hate crime.

On February 14, the mufti of Simferopol (Crimean Republic) went on local TV to show viewers a swastika emblazoned leaflet that threatened Muslims with death if they build a mosque. The mufti said the leaflets were distributed around the city.

On February 16 near the Paton Bridge in Kiev, three young men assaulted the military attache of the Indian embassy, beating him in front of his daughter before jumping on a street car to escape. The next day, around 20 neo-Nazis spotted two dark-skinned refugees on Mayakovsky Street in Kiev and chased them into a supermarket. The extremists lay in wait for their victims outside the store, screaming racist threats until police arrived to disperse them.

On February 18, neo-Nazis in Dnepropetrovsk assaulted a citizen of Nigeria.

Back in Kiev, on February 19, three young men described by witnesses as skinheads attacked a 40 year old Nigerian man. When he resisted, they maced and stabbed him. Both the victim and one of the assailants was hospitalized. Incredibly, the Nigerian was charged with assault (he used a metal pipe to strike out at his attackers and injured one of them). UCSJ learned more details of this case today from the Kharkov Human Rights Protection Group--Ukraine's leading human rights organization. According to their report, the investigator in charge of the case objected to the victim characterizing his actions as defense against a racist attack, arguing that there are no grounds to state that the assault was motivated by racism. Police allowed man accused of wielding the knife, a Russian citizen, to leave the country for medical treatment, and are reportedly focused on the injuries he suffered rather than the knife wound in the Nigerian man's body.

That same day in Kiev, a group of young men attacked an African woman in the Troeshchina district, breaking a bottle over her head. Also that day, a citizen of Turkmenistan was attacked; the SBU detained a suspect on April 10 and charged him with "hooliganism."

The next day (February 20), a group of youths attacked two foreign students near the MAUP university, sending them both to the hospital (see UCSJ report at: http://www.fsumonitor.com/stories/022708Ukraine.shtml). Kiev's police chief responded to media reports on this attack with the incredible assertion that no racist crimes were committed in Kiev over the last year, even though the suspects were dressed like skinheads and admitted that they shouted skinhead slogans during the attack.

On February 29, police in Kiev announced the detention of two youths in connection with the murder of a Congolese refugee, an incident that prompted a statement of concern from the UNHCR about 17 incidents of verbal and physical violence against refugees last year in Ukraine. (Background Information: http://www.fsumonitor.com/stories/030508Ukraine2.shtml).

Throughout the month of March, vandals in Lviv painted swastikas and other antisemitic graffiti on Jewish sites, including a synagogue and a Holocaust memorial.

On March 4, vandals struck a Jewish cemetery in Berdichev, painting swastikas and damaging a fence. Police detained four suspects, one of them the leader of a local neo-Nazi gang. Sources within the Jewish community allege that local police asked them to characterize the incident as an ordinary, non-hate crime when talking to the press.

On March 8, a citizen of Sierra Leone was murdered in Kiev in front of his wife. The victim was not robbed, increasing the possibility that the killing was a hate crime. (Background Information: http://www.fsumonitor.com/stories/031408Ukraine2.shtml). Police later detained two young suspects in a train station as they tried to flee the city.

That same day in Kiev, neo-Nazis attacked participants in a women's rights demonstration, seriously injuring two women.

On March 12 in the village of Oktyabrskoe (Crimean Republic) three youths tried to vandalize a local mosque. They broke through the mosque's door while drunk, but parishioners detained one of them and called the police. Later that day, one of the vandals' relatives came to the mosque and fixed the door.

That same day in Kiev, the country's Minister of Internal Affairs, Yuri Lutsenko, announced that police in Kiev had identified over 500 neo-Nazis in that city, and that the problem of "racist violence concerns us, not only in Kiev but in all of Ukraine." At the same time, he responded defensively to reports of increasing violence against refugees in Ukraine. "If you'd like to know, I'll tell you why people become refugees--it's so they don't get deported," he reportedly said. "Illegal immigrants send requests to the Ministry of Justice, become applicants for this status, and thereafter freely walk the streets of Ukrainian cities rather than being in detention, where the law dictates they should be."

On March 13, a Kiev court ordered neo-Nazi leader Oles Vakhny arrested on suspicion of an attack on an Egyptian diplomat in 2007 and the arson of an Iranian-owned café in 2006.

On March 14, Minister Lutsenko met with US Ambassador William Taylor to discuss law enforcement issues. Minister Lutsenko candidly stated that crimes against foreigners were increasing because "in Ukraine there are many racially intolerant youth groups," to which Ambassador Taylor responded that police investigations of these crimes has not been very effective.

On March 22, neo-Nazis attacked a Nigerian in Nikolaev. Police are investigating the incident as a robbery, since the assailants took their victim's cell phone.

On March 23, a far-right demonstration was held at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute, which hosts a large number of foreign students. Holding torches in the style of Nazi Germany, marchers chanted "Migrants go home!" and "Outsider, remember: the Ukrainian is the master here." Ukraine's human rights ombudsman Nina Karpachova condemned the university administration for violating its own rules prohibiting political marches and the Kiev city administration for doing nothing to stop the march. Police reportedly allowed the marchers to parade through the campus twice and only used force on a group of anti-racism protestors.

On March 26 in Kiev, someone stabbed an Iranian in the back; the victim was hospitalized.

The next day, a group of neo-Nazis attacked an Iranian student near the building of the National Aviation University.

Also on March 27 (though possibly on April 3), an Indian student was attacked in Ternopil.

On March 28 in Kiev, five youths (three of them girls) attacked a Nigerian on a tram; one of the youths stabbed their victim and was detained. The victim was hospitalized and told the press that this is the second time he has been attacked in recent months.

On April 2, police, SBU and foreign ministry officials held a roundtable in Kiev with NGOs on "Problems of Fighting Racism in Ukraine." MVD officials announced that they will soon create special units to investigate racist violence in Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa, Lviv, and Lugansk. An SBU official, Nikolai Kalashkin, said that there were around 100 incidents of xenophobia in Ukraine last year, around 20% of which were directed against the Jewish community.

In contrast to this news of positive action and official recognition of the scale of the problem after years of denials from different branches of government, Aleksandr Gorin, a foreign ministry official in charge of racism issues, said (in Mr. Likhachyov's paraphrasing) that, "there is no racism as a social tendency in Ukraine, though there are individual incidents that need to be combated."

On April 3 in Ternopil, a group of youths attacked a dormitory for foreign students at the local medical school. The students were able to find safety inside the building after an alert watchman locked the door in time to stop the rampaging youths. He suffered a blow to the head. That same day, a group of youths attacked an Indian student outside the El Dorado store, sending him to the hospital. The dean of foreign students at the university said that this is not the first such attack too have taken place recently.

On April 11, vandals destroyed 39 gravestones at a Muslim cemetery in the village of Chistenkoe (Republic of Crimea). The vandals painted racist slogans and drawings on the fence.

On April 15, for the second time in two years, a cemetery memorial over the grave of a famous local rabbi was attacked by vandals in Zhitomir. Someone burned down the memorial over the grave of Rabbi Aaron, a disciple of the Baal Shem-Tov. In November 2007, vandals painted antisemitic graffiti on the grave memorial, but police refused to open an investigation, arguing that there was "an absence of a crime." In the days after Mr. Likhachyov sent in his report, local police reported that they had solved the crime. According to investigators, the fire was an accident rather than arson. Three teenagers were playing soccer near the cemetery and lit a fire on the cemetery grounds in order to warm up. The fire then got out of a control and burned down the memorial.

On April 17, two potentially ground-backing cases ended in guilty verdicts in separate court rooms in Kiev. In both trials, defendants were convicted of actions aimed at inciting ethnic hatred under Article 161 of the criminal code, only the second and third time in all of Ukraine's post-Soviet history that an Article 161 prosecution was successfully applied in relation to a hate crime.

The first case was heard in the Podolsky District Court. Vyacheslav Dmitruk, age 18, was sentenced to three years in prison under Article 161 for attacking a Japanese tourist.

The same day, the Darnitsky district court ended the trial of four suspects accused of murdering a Nigerian citizen last October. Kunon Mievi Godi, a 44 year old man who lived for many years in Ukraine, was killed on the evening of October 25, 2006 near the Poznyaki metro station. Eyewitnesses reported that the attackers shouted racist slogans. Mr. Mievi, who is survived by a Ukrainian wife and a son, died of knife wounds before police arrived. He had a Ph.D. and worked for an oil company in the city.

The judge found one suspect guilty of first degree murder and incitement of ethnic hatred and sentenced him to 11 years in prison. A second defendant, a young woman, was convicted solely of ethnic incitement and got four and a half years. A third defendant avoided prison through and an amnesty, while another was treated as a witness.

Despite a rising number of attacks on ethnic minorities in Ukraine, until April 17, there had been only one successful hate crimes prosecution in Ukraine, and even in that case (the trial of several neo-Nazis who attacked a synagogue in Kiev while screaming "Death to the Yids!"), the chief organizer of the assault was let out of prison early.

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