Blog
Published on July 21, 2009
Check out this Huffington Post article from a partner working at the African Center of Kyiv.
The rise in racist violence has turned what was originally a cultural mission to one that deals largely with hate crimes and urging increased government response.
Charles Asante-Yeboa, the auth0r of this piece, was himself a victim of hate crime and knows firsthand why criminal justice is important for these heinous acts:
I am yet to recover fully from the wounds that I suffered, and the memory
of that evening still makes me cautious as I walk down even busy city streets.
Furthermore, I am still waiting for the perpetrators to be brought to
justice. Like in most other cases of racist violence in Ukraine, there is ageneral climate of impunity for those who commit these brazen acts ofdiscrimination.
As Vice-President Biden meets with high-level officials in his visit to Ukraine, let’s hope he takes the opportunity to encourage the Ukrainian government to take practical and concrete steps – like those outlined in Human Rights First’s Hate Crime Survey to strengthen its response to hate crime.
