CAIRO, March 11, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Ukraine’s two-million Muslim minority are complaining about the alarming escalation of racist attacks targeting them recently, according to a report sent to IslamOnline.net Friday, March 11.

The report, released by the Federation of Social Organizations in Ukraine, the largest Muslim group in the country, said protests were staged to urge government actions to stop racial attacks in various patterns.

The situation is quickly deteriorating in a way completely unprecedented in the history of the country, especially with the assaults mostly targeting Arab and Muslim students, the statement warned, citing testimonies of Arab and Muslim students brutally assaulted by Ukrainians.

Omar and Nagui, two Jordanian and Syrian students studying medicine in one of Kiev’s universities gave one example of such incidents.

While on their way back from visiting some friends, they were both surrounded by some 30 Ukrainians, who severely beat them before vanishing from the key pedestrian crossing.

Omar suffered a brain clot and a paralysis in his left side of the body, while Hisham hardly escaped with cerebral concussions and various bruises.

Protests

The assault drew local outrage and quick expressions of solidarity.

Students at the university where the two assaulted students attend converged in the outside of administration offices calling for action to protect them.

In response, university officials promised to closely monitor the situation. Syrian and Jordanian consulates also called official bodies for more consultations on the implications.

Fears over the escalation were also echoed by the Islamic Center in Kiev, which sent a delegation to visit the two students.

In another separate incident, another Jordanian medical student was seriously injured in the eye after an attack by a group of Ukrainian youths in a Kiev underground station.

The student, only identified as Mustafa, suffered bruises and injuries in various parts of his body.

Hisham, Egyptian, was hit by a knife in his abdomen by an armed man while getting out of a supermarket in central Kiev.

Fortunately, Hisham survived the attack, as the knife was stopped by his passport which he usually keeps under the belt for fears of being lost.

Murad, a Palestinian air engineering student, was dealt blows while getting out of a shop. He was faced with 20 more people when he tried to act in self-defense.

The discrimination also included Arab and Muslim women, the Federation said in the report.

Mohamed, another medical student, was with his wife when he came under a similar unprovoked attack. When he tried to protect her from the 15 people who encircled them in one of the malls situated at the Victory Square in Kiev, they were both close to a tragedy.

When the wife tried to escape, one of the attackers attempted to grab her before hiding in a nearby store. The aggressors only escaped after pedestrians called police.

According to recent estimates, some 50,000 Muslims, mostly foreign, live in Kiev

Discriminated

The federation said there are many other attacks on Muslims that went unreported, adding the victims fear revenge or suspect the complaints would not be taken seriously by police.

International Religious Freedom Report 2004, issued by the US State Department annually on the state of religion across the world, said even police is accused of harassing Muslims in Ukraine.

Muslims are often subjected to document checks by local police, particularly in Kharkiv and Poltava, two provinces in the former Soviet country, said the State Department report.

Islamic minority leaders expressed frustration with the Ministry of Education, which has yet to register a single Islamic school, and that representatives of the Muslim minority noted they have been unable to register a community in Kharkiv for the past 11 years, it added.

Farouq Ashour, the chairman of the federation which groups 10 Islamic organizations and three Islamic centers dotted in 10 Ukrainian cities, said Muslims make up five percent of the overall 48 million population. There are 467 registered Muslim communities in Ukraine, many of them are Crimean Tatars.

The Crimean Tatars were deported forcibly from Crimea in 1944, but they began returning in 1989. There are approximately 300,000 Crimean Tatars in Ukraine; 267,000 live in the Black Sea peninsula.

Hopes

The minority leaders hope the recent change of regime would mean the government would move to stop attacks against Muslims or improve their conditions.

Newly-elected President Viktor Yanukovych met with Muslim leaders in Ukraine on the occasion of Eid Al-Adha late January, saying he waited for the minority to “refresh moral and religious foundations of Ukrainians”.

“We see Islam as a chance for reviving spiritualism, which we lack here,” Yanukovych has said during the ceremony.

Yanukovych’s predecessor, Leonid Kuchma, warned in 1999 that his country was facing the threat of what he called Islamic extremism, and asked security officials to take measures to protect the nation amid fears that Chechen fighters are crossing the borders into Ukraine.

In February, a Europe-based Muslim activist has called for according due attention to the sizable Muslim community in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, which has broken loose from the Communist yoke.

IslamOnline.net