'Alarming rise' in Ukraine racism

Amnesty says the government does not take racist attacks seriously

There has been an "alarming rise" in the number of racially motivated attacks in Ukraine, according to a new Amnesty International study.

The group says more than 60 people were targeted in racial attacks last year. Four people have died this year alone.

The government, it says, fails to recognise the gravity of the problem, frequently registering the attacks only as acts of "hooliganism".

No comment from Ukrainian officials was immediately available.

Amnesty UK campaign director Tim Hancock said in a statement that: "Foreigners and ethnic minorities now live in a climate of fear.

"Ukraine's police, prosecutors and politicians need to urgently confront the scourge of racism, not sidestep it by calling hate crimes acts of 'hooliganism'."

Hooliganism, the groups says, is easier to prove in court and carries a lighter sentence.

Amnesty says that while the government recognises individual incidents, it does not accept that racism is growing in the country.

Ultra-right groups in the country, such as the Ukrainian National Labour Party, are often blamed for the rising levels of violence.

Its leader Evhen Herasymenko told the Associated Press that attacking foreign migrants was "like the immune system - the reaction of a healthy body to the infection that got into it".

According to the International Organization for Migration, there are some 500 skinheads in Kiev alone, while there are a further 1,000 members of hate groups throughout Ukraine.