Police keep back statistics on religious hate crime, – mass media

An actual number of offences with regard to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church exceed those offered by the law enforcement, reports the UOC Information and Education Department.

At the beginning of February the Central Investigation Department of the National Police of Ukraine published the results of the law enforcement bodies’ activity over the last year. Inter alia, law enforcers announced that 76 proceedings were initiated in 2016 on committing hate crimes.

As the police reported, there were commenced 50 criminal cases under the article “violation of citizens’ equality”, 12 cases under the article “desecration or destruction of religious sanctities”, 8 cases – “obstruction of religious ceremonies”, and 4 cases under the article “damage to religious constructions”.

It is said, however, about 17 facts of desecration of temples of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which involved plundering. This problem is the most acute in Polesye where criminals ransacked 5 village temples from April to August 2016.

There were also cases of intentional arsons of the UOC churches: three arson attempts were made in the capital from January to May 2016 and at least two similar attempts in the regions – in Nikolayev of Lvov region and Pavlograd of Denpropetrovsk region.

Representatives of the National Police have turned a blind eye to a number of acts of vandalism with regard to the places of spiritual significance to Christians from various confessions. In particular, in September and October the unknown poured the paint onto the monument of Saint Prince Vladimir the Great in Kiev. A wide resonance was caused by the facts of cutting roadside memorial crosses in Dnepr, Uman and in Vinnitsa region.

The authors believe the law enforcers failed to mention numerous cases of violation of the article “obstruction of religious ceremonies”: “Not less mistrust is caused by the data of the National Police on 8 facts of infringements under article 180 at the background of large-scale endeavors of right radical activists and representatives of the Kiev Patriarchate to stand in the way of the Cross Procession of peace, love and prayer for Ukraine, which took place in the summer last year. It cannot be kept back owing to the fact the police themselves informed the public on numerous cases of risks and threats, such as inserting of explosives along the itinerary of the Cross Procession to Kiev, which led to unprecedented safeguards on 27 July in the entire capital.”

Additionally, it is said that in Kuty village of Ternopol region the UOC-KP adherents disrupted Sunday worships for a long while at first and then undertook a church raid, registered in the list of offences at the MIA.

“Taking note of this far incomplete list of resonant religion-based hate crimes, one is alarmed by the attempt of the National Police of Ukraine to conceal an actual state with respect for the constitutional right to freedom of conscience and religious beliefs in our state,” write the authors of the article.