Five young men who appeared to be skinheads murdered a citizen of Nigeria in Kiev, according to Vyacheslav Likhachyov, UCSJ's Kiev monitor. Godknows Mievi, a 44 year old man who lived for many years in Ukraine, was killed on the evening of October 25 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 November 1, 2006 Ukraine edition of the national Russian daily Kommersant added that Mr. Mievi's assailants shouted "We will save Ukraine from these freaks!" as they stabbed him and that they did not bother robbing him of the $400 he had in his possession, all evidence that the murder was a hate crime. The article, however, failed to mention the fact that in the entire post-Soviet history of Ukraine, there has been only one successful hate crimes prosecution, 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.   

The November 2, 2006 edition of the Kiev newspaper Gazeta po-kievski reported that a suspect has been detained in the murder investigation, though the article offered no details about the charges he faces. Ruslan Skripets--a member of the extremist nationalist Ukrainian Movement Against Illegal Immigration--was reportedly arrested shortly after the murder. This organization, which was obviously inspired by the Movement Against Illegal Immigration in Russia (an organization allegedly linked to anti-minority violence in Kondopoga and elsewhere), distributed racist leaflets in Kiev shortly before the murder, according to an October 25, 2006 report by the Kiev newspaper Blik. The leaflets claimed that Ukraine's population has fallen by five million over the past five years, while at the same time almost as many Africans and Asians have migrated to the country (both of these figures are grossly over-stated, according to government statistics). "Only Slavs are dying!" in Ukraine, the leaflet argues. The article quoted a local activist from this organization saying that while his group does not engage in violence against minorities, he understands why neo-Nazis do and thinks other people should avoid "stigmatizing them." Police reportedly did nothing to investigate the distribution of these leaflets, which may violate Ukraine's laws against hate speech.   

The Gazeta po-kievski article quoted Pastor Sandey Adelazha--an African Protestant minister whose services are widely covered in the press--as saying that Africans are assaulted on a weekly basis in Kiev and that the rise of racist violence in Ukraine is probably connected to the growth of the neo-Nazi movement in neighboring Russia. "I've lived in Ukraine for 13 years, and it was calmer back then," the pastor said, "though even then Africans had some problems and my apartment was robbed four times. But nowadays, African embassies receive complaints every week from their citizens who have been attacked."   

The article exposed a previously unreported incident as well. In 2004, a Ukrainian woman and her African husband were attacked by two men who knocked the African to the floor and started to kick him. The wife's screams attracted the attention of a passing police patrol, which scared off the attackers. However, when the officers realized that an African had been attacked, they allegedly refused to take a report of the assault or give him medical assistance, and instead just drove off. The couple complained to the prosecutor's office, and an investigation was launched, but by then it was too late to find the suspects. The Ukrainian woman claimed that her husband was not robbed of anything during the attack and that the attackers screamed something racist in English as they beat him. 

  Finally, a Nigerian consular officer, Parkison Maduako, was interviewed in the November 1, 2006 edition of Gazeta po-kievski and was quoted as saying that he had been subjected to a racist attack. On his way to the bank one day, a man pushed him to the ground for no reason, and didn't attempt to rob him. "What inspired him to do that, I don't know, but I think it was the color of my skin," Mr. Maduako said. 

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