Lviv Police accused of discriminating against Roma residents of the region

The Executive Director of the European Roma Rights Centre [ERRC] has approached Ukraine’s Prosecutor General and Minister of Internal Affairs regarding reports that police officers in Lviv and the Lviv region are unlawfully taking fingerprints and carrying out checks in a discriminatory fashion of Roma people from the region.

The Institute for Human Rights and Prevention of Extremism and Xenophobia report that the ERRC have received reports suggesting that during September and October 2011 Roma people “have been subjected to a deliberate campaign aimed at gathering personal data (checking documents, taking fingerprints, photographing them), as well as checks of markets and Roma people’s houses.

The report stresses that according to the Law on the Police, officers may check documents and take fingerprints only where there are legitimate grounds for suspecting the particular person of having committed a crime. Furthermore, such unlawful action by law enforcement bodies is not only a violation of the Constitution, but places in question Ukraine’s implementation of a number of international agreements which are a part of Ukraine’s domestic legislation. 

Reported at UNIAN