8th session of the Forum on Minority Issues
Social Action Center – No Borders Project on Item III
Mr Chairman, in light of the draft recommendations number 20, 21 concerning this the establishment of
a legislative framework, specifically prohibiting and punishing racial and ethnic profiling by law
enforcement and provision of respected guidance on non-discriminatory policing the instruments that
both the Russian Federation and Ukraine lack, I would like to draw your attention to the situation of
two ethnic minority groups that are suffering from police brutality on the state territory of Ukraine.
One of the groups are Crimean Tatars due to the annexation of the peninsula by the Russian Federation
in March 2014 has been exposed to an unprecedented surge of Human Rights violations at the hands of
the occupant’s law enforcement and federal security service. Private homes of Crimean Tatars have
been raided on questionable grounds and the searches are usually conducted in the humiliating manner
and result in property damage. Also, commonplace in the searches is involvement of armed militaries
who are working surprisingly in tune with the police. At the same time, police tend to turn a blind eye on
the incidents of abduction, disappearance, murder and other crimes against Crimean Tatars that have
occurred throughout 2014 and 2015.
The other very similar situated group is Roma, which has been traditionally stigmatised in thousands of
long history of problematic relations with law enforcement facing ethnic profiling and complete failure on
the part of law enforcement to duly investigate crimes committed against Roma. Whilst the official
criminal statistics completely disproves the myth that Roma are more criminally group than any other
ethnic group in the Ukrainian society whenever a crime is committed in a neighbourhood Roma are the
first to be subjected to ungrounded stops, detention and studies show that for no other purpose but
preventive photographing and dactyloscopy, personal searches and researches of the premises where
the Rome reside. Besides, such clearly discriminatory police practices tend grow in scale from time to
time. Illustrative of this is a recent mass search and detention of Roma in the city of in Southern Asia, in
the mainland of Ukraine which only stopped after intervention from the Ombudsman. More
disconcertingly, the police don’t seem to use such practices is problematic, trying to justify them by
referring to criminal mentality of the Roma which is harsh reaction from the law enforcement. As one
police officer interviewed for a study last year said “Yes, I see Roma every day and all of them are
potential criminals and the more you control them the more obedient they become”.
On a different note, I would like to suggest that recommendation number 20 and 21 be reinforced by an
obligation of a state is not only to enact and provide certain instruments but also to vigilantly ensure
proper and broad applications of these instruments, internally through the development of relevant
control procedures and mechanisms.
That it would seems like a redundant and even (…), I am thinking of the saying easier said than done
and conclude that as a matter of fact, a significant number of states take it the way of having progressive