Neo-Nazis kill Roma man in Ukraine
Following attacks on Roma camps in several Ukrainian cities, a 24-year-old Romani man of Hungarian origin has been stabbed by a group of presumed neo-Nazis. Four other Roma, including a ten-year-old boy, suffered injuries. Seven suspects have been arrested. Commentators await a reaction from the Ukrainian and Hungarian authorities.
Racism is deeply rooted in society
Mustafa Nayyem, an Afghan-born member of the Ukrainian parliament, calls on Europe to combat racism consistently in Novoye Vremya:
“For a long time we feared mentioning this word and hoped that the problem would somehow solve itself. But that didn't work out. And to stop the first symptoms from turning into a national pandemic it's time we admitted that there are signs of systemic racism in our society. The first step must be to acknowledge this. The next, to correctly assess it and adopt countermeasures - in social discourse, at police stations and in courts. ... There are questions that need to be asked, and not only directed at law enforcement authorities that treated this disease as just a symptom of cockiness among youths and other things instead of tackling the root causes.”
Hungary couldn't care less about the victim
The centre-left news website Kettős Mérce laments the absence of a statement by the Hungarian government regarding the murder of a Hungarian citizen:
“Unfortunately we look in vain on the website of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry or the Hungarian embassy in Kiev for a message in which the government expresses its condolences and sympathy with the family of the late Dávid Pap, which condemns the terror attack by the neo-Nazis and the inactivity of the Ukrainian authorities in response to such pogroms, and in which the Ukrainian state is called upon to do all it can to bring the murderers to justice, disband the neo-Nazi terror organisations and prevent such attacks in the future.”