Following an expert review, the police closed the criminal case against Ivano-Frankivsk Mayor Ruslan Martsinkiv regarding his remarks about the Roma. The experts found no evidence of incitement to ethnic hatred in the mayor’s remarks.
Ivan Vygivsky, head of the National Police of Ukraine, spoke about this in an interview with the publication “Ukrainian News.”
“A linguistic, semantic, and textual analysis was conducted, which determined that his statements did not incite ethnic hostility or hatred that would degrade human dignity. Therefore, the case was closed due to the absence of the elements of a crime,” said Vygivsky.
In April 2020, during an operational meeting at City Hall, Ivano-Frankivsk Mayor Ruslan Martsinkiv instructed the local police to “round up” the Roma and transport them from the city to Zakarpattia.
“Also, the Gypsies—no, or rather, people of Roma ethnicity. We already gave them a bus. We took them to Zakarpattia. Why are they still here?” Marcinkiv asked his subordinates in April 2020.
According to the mayor, this was a repeat request, and the first time around, several people refused to leave.
“What do you mean, they refused? Why didn’t you round them up? There’s a police force. You have until next Tuesday to resolve this issue. We gave you a bus. The police asked for a bus—we gave it to them. Why didn’t you load them up and take them away?” asked the mayor.
Human rights activists criticized the statement made by the mayor of Frankivsk. Subsequently, the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs opened a criminal case against Ruslan Martsinkiv under Article 161 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
In 2020, the mayor’s statement was condemned by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Coalition of Roma Non-Governmental Organizations of Ukraine, and Lyudmyla Nepiyvoda, a representative of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights. The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine also called his remarks “discriminatory.”
