On Tuesday the Simferopol City Council gave its consent for the preparation of a plan for transferring a land site to the Spiritual Directorate of Crimean Muslims in order to build a Soborna or Assembly Mosque

The Spiritual Directorate of Crimean Muslims reports that Ukraine’s High Economic Court has upheld the right of Crimean Muslims to build a Soborna, or Assembly, Mosque in Simferopol

The Crimean authorities are widely initiating criminal proceedings over the squatting of land by Crimean Tatars, and, as reported, the Crimean Prime Minister, Vasyl Dzharty has called on Mustafa Dzhemiliev to voluntarily “hand over” all squatted land

The land confrontation in the Crimea could take on new momentum following statements from the Head of the Crimean Government Vasyl Dzharty that an end is needed to land squatting

“The Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of the Crimea views what has happened as a deliberate attempt to destabilize inter-faith peace in the Crimea and demands appropriate measures from the law enforcement agencies

The Crimean Prosecutor’s Office has brought charges of resisting the police against the Head of the Secretariat of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, Zair Smedlyaev. Over the case initiated after a rally of Crimean Tatars in 2006, he could face 4 years imprisonment

The Crimean authorities are once again trying to stop the building of the Soborna or Assembly Mosque in Simferopol

At the initiative of National Deputy Oleksandr Feldman, monitoring has begun of popular Internet publications for manifestations of xenophobia, anti-Semitism and violence. Human rights activists urge caution.

Questions are rightly asked about recent police action in suppressing peaceful protest and obstructing protesters from reaching Kyiv. It is also baffling how the author of xenophobic hate speech could have become Minister of Internal Affairs in the first place

According to the research carried out by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology from 1994 to 2010 inclusive, over the last two years Ukrainians have become slightly more tolerant in their attitude towards foreigners.

The warning is over radio broadcasts in 2009 on the channel directly associated with Deputy of the Kherson City Council, Serhiy Kyrychenko

According to V. Lichachov, Head of a monitoring programme on racism and xenophobia, there is an upward trend in the number of ever more brutal attacks on anti-fascists and opponents from sub-cultures, He says that this has been seen particularly during 2010.”

Volodymyr Batchaev, Head of the Board of the Cherkasy Centre for Monitoring Human Rights shows how “warnings” on the Ministry of Internal Affairs official website incite racial enmity in relation to Roma people

Rivne police have provoked an international scandal. During their operation “Illegal Alien” they unwarrantedly detained and allegedly beat two Azerbaijan nationals who were entirely legally in Ukraine, visiting their father. The two Azerbaijanis have complained to the Presidents of Ukraine and Azerbaijan, to the embassy and the law enforcement agencies.

Racial profiling and non-violent harassment by police as well as attacks against foreigners with non-Slavic appearances by skin-head, and other ultra-right wing groups have become an issue of growing concern as Euro 2012 approaches

Veterans of World War II reported that Hitler’s book, banned in many countries, was being sold freely in Simferopol. Seven copies were found during a check of the book market

The Euro-Asian Jewish Congress has issued a statement regarding the murder of Aryeh Leib Misinzov in Kyiv and unsubstantiated claims that he was the victim of a neo-Nazi attack

A letter from Tilman Tsyulykh, General Secretary of the Society in Support of Threatened Peoples (Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker, Berlin, especially prompted by a worrying campaign being waged against the Crimean Tatar people

In a report on crimes against foreign nationals, Oleh Martynenko, Head of the Department for the Monitoring of Human Rights in the Work of the Police, provides statistical evidence of the number of crimes committed and information about measures against racism and xenophobia

The Administration of the Ukrainian Catholic University is appealing to the education community in Ukraine to come out publicly about the situation in education following the appointment of Dmytro Tabachnyk as Minister of Education and Science