The Fighting Discrimination Program has urged high-ranking European officials to use a September 9 summit meeting with Ukrainian officials to address substantively the precipitous rise in racially-motivated violent hate crimes in Ukraine.

In letters to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in his capacity as president of the EU Council, and the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, as well as other senior EU officials, Human Rights First urges the European delegation to the upcoming E.U.-Ukraine Summit to discuss the recent increase in racist and related violence and put forward specific recommendations on how to strengthen the Ukrainian government’s response to the problem.

Read the Letter to the EU Council

Read the Letter to the European Commission

Tad Stahnke, Fighting Discrimination Program Director, co-signed two advocacy letters to the State Department’s Assistant Secretary Daniel Fried, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, and Assistant Secretary David Kramer, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Human Rights First joined four other prominent NGOs in attempting to raise the problem of intolerance against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons within the framework of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) upcoming Human Dimension Implementation Meeting (HDIM) in Warsaw this September. The Fighting Discrimination Program will be represented at the HDIM meeting, furthering our advocacy agenda.

Read the Letter to David Kramer

Read the Letter to Dan Fried

A coalition of leading advocacy groups, convened by Human Rights First, has called on Dan Fried, the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, to use an upcoming bilateral meeting to substantively address the precipitous rise in racially-motivated murders and other hate crimes in Ukraine since 2006.

In a joint letter, Human Rights First, Amnesty International, Freedom House, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, NCSJ: Advocates on behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States, and Eurasia, and the Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union, outlined recommendations on how to strengthen the Ukrainian government’s response to the problem.

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Read the Press Release

Fighting Discrimination Program Director Tad Stahnke co-signed an advocacy letter to Ms. Dubravka Simonovic, the chairperson of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Human Rights First joined a group of other well-known NGOs in expressing concern about the discriminatory remarks in relation to lesbians made by a Committee member at the July 16 UN-CEDAW meeting.

Read the Letter

Human Rights First, together with the Finnish League for Human Rights, presented NGO recommendations at the meeting of the OSCE’s National Points of Contact on combating hate crimes. Tad Stahnke emphasized that governments should adopt a vigorous and flexible approach to combating violent hate crimes by:

• forging institutionalized cooperation with communities and civil society groups;
• supporting ODIHR efforts to build the capacity of civil society organizations to complement and support government hate crime monitoring, response and prevention efforts;
• acknowledging and condemning violent hate crimes;
• enacting laws that expressly address violent hate crimes;
• strengthening enforcement and prosecuting offenders;
• ensuring that all law enforcement professionals are provided the appropriate direction and supervision, given the necessary resources, and adequately trained;  
• undertaking parliamentary, inter-agency or other special inquiries into the problem of hate crimes;
• monitoring and publicly reporting on violent hate crimes;
• creating and strengthening antidiscrimination bodies;
• speaking out against intolerance and bigotry;
• and encouraging international cooperation on hate crimes.

Human Rights First believes that because violent hate crime is a problem that is shared throughout the OSCE region, states can take advantage of the opportunity to work together to address the problem. 

Read the Recommendations

Access Tad Stahnke’s remarks

Read Statement Here

Read Tad Stahnke's Statement to the Review Conference on Core Principles

Read the Press Release 

The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg released a Viewpoint on July 21 decrying recent episodes of intolerant violence in Europe and proposing concrete measures to combat hate crimes. The Commissioner’s statement references our 2007 Hate Crime Survey and Report Card and reflects our recommendations on combating hate crime in Europe.

Read our Letter to Thomas Hammarberg

Access the Commissioner’s Viewpoint

Read our Ten Recommendations

View 2007 Hate Crime Survey