A Ukrainian court has finally seen the light, as well as the law, and has revoked a discriminatory ruling by Ukraine’s National Bank which made the life of Crimeans following Russia’s invasion and occupation even harder.

Moscow’s claim that it needed to annex Crimea to protect ethnic Russians was never proven. What has been demonstrated, and soon, is that ethnic Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars and all Crimeans who remain Ukrainian nationals face serious discrimination.

19-year-old Bohdan Kravchuk from Lutsk in Western Ukraine is a first year student in the history faculty of the Lesya Ukrainka East European National University.

Human rights activists are adamant that calling Crimeans ‘non-residents’ and restricting their right to bank operations in Ukrainian banks is in breach of Ukraine’s Constitution which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of place of residence.

Following a storm of criticism and law suits, Ukraine’s National Bank attempted to rectify the situation whereby Crimeans were discriminated against. Human rights activists warn that the measures taken have led to new restrictions on Crimeans’ rights and imposed additional requirements

The police have reclassified the crime from arson because the two men who have confessed say they ‘only’ wanted to disrupt the showing of one of the films at an LGBT film festival

Ukrainians registered as living in the Crimea face restrictions that other Ukrainians do not. Olha Skrypnyk, head of the Crimean Field Mission on Human Rights slams this as overt discrimination.

The Coalition for Combating Discrimination in Ukraine [CCD] is calling on the Ukrainian government and international community to pay heed to systematic rights violations in the Crimea under Russian occupation and to impose international sanctions.

This legislative opus from the self-proclaimed Luhansk people’s republic was ‘voted on’ with a show of hands, which the self-styled parliamentarians appear to consider sufficient for people to be sent to prison or executed for homosexual acts

Crimean Tatar Flag Day was not the first time under Russian occupation that Crimean Tatars have been prevented from holding events in the centre of Simferopol. In May the occupation regime banned the traditional remembrance gatherings marking the seventieth anniversary of the Deportation.

The Russian Education Ministry has announced that Ukrainian in Crimean schools will be retrained as teachers of Russian. Not only is the main language of tuition changing at the Ukrainian Lyceum in Simferopol, but a Russian flag has now been raised over it

The Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine demand adequate investigation of recent anti-Semitic attacks. They warn that given overt attempts to use the topic of anti-Semitism to discredit the opposition and civil protest movement, the Jewish community should be especially vigilant.

The dubious tactics of «anti-paedophile» – often anti-gay - vigilantes from an organization with neo-Nazi links have finally been noticed - and actually condemned - by the police. Less cheeringly, this attention coincides with calls by certain MPs and the Human Rights Ombudsperson for the EU to waive its demand that Ukraine prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.

The groups addressed an open letter to EU leaders after Valeria Lutkovska, Human Rights Ombudsperson and several MPs stated that they planned to ask the European Commission to waive the requirement on amendments to anti-discrimination legislation.

Ukraine’s bid to persuade the European Commission to release the country from its commitment to legislate against homophobia is an unacceptable attempt to deny equal rights in the country, Amnesty International says

A comparison of the number of crimes committed by Roma and on average in Ukraine was carried out in the Transcarpathian, Odessa, Poltava and Cherkasy oblasts where there are large Roma communities. This found that the crime rate among the Roma was 2.5 times lower than the general level in the country.

In its Recommendation, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe calls on Ukraine’s Parliament not to pursue the examination of the draft law on the prohibition of so-called "homosexual propaganda”.

The Coalition for Combating Discrimination in Ukraine has issued a statement regarding attempts by the Kyiv City State Administration [KCSA] to secure a court ban on any events in the centre of Kyiv on 25 May 2013

Following months of protest from civic organizations over a thoroughly inadequate anti-discrimination bill, the same document has aroused indignation and seriously inflated claims from groups claiming to be protecting family values etc and see the law as “defending” homosexuality.

At the beginning of October the Justice Ministry set to drawing up a package of amendments to the much-criticism Anti-Discrimination Law and to other legislative acts. Unfortunately for the second time comments from civic organizations were not taken into account.