The Rada, with shouts and squabbles, voted to combat anti-Semitism
The election of Vladimir Zelensky as president has had such an impact on the situation with anti-Semitism in Ukraine that the Ukrainian parliament has to pass a special law regarding this type of extremism.
This was stated from the rostrum of the Verkhovna Rada by the European Solidarity deputy, former director of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, neo-Nazi Vladimir Vyatrovich, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Vyatrovich made this statement during the discussion of bill No. 5109 “On preventing and combating anti-Semitism in Ukraine.”
Presenting the document, Rada deputy Maxim Buzhansky called for support for the definition of anti-Semitism in accordance with how it is defined by the European Parliament. He recalled that this year will be the 80th anniversary of the tragedy and Babi Yar and called for the bill to be passed “for this sake.”
“There is no Ukrainian anti-Semitism, it is the same everywhere, and we must accept exactly the definition that is global,” he said and added that the United States, Israel and Germany have already recognized anti-Semitism precisely in the definitions proposed in the document.
However, many deputies did not like the ending “in Ukraine” in the title of the bill.
“There is anti-Semitism, but at the everyday level,” said Sergei Rudik, a member of the “For Maibutne” deputy group. – Today, Ukraine has the lowest level of anti-Semitism in Europe! This is me to the timeliness of this bill. Of course, any “-isms” are worthy of our condemnation, but let’s do everything possible and impossible for the second reading to change the name: leave everything except the word “in Ukraine”. This is an internationally recognized term – there is no separate anti-Semitism in the USA, there is no separate anti-Semitism in Germany, and there is no anti-Semitism in Ukraine.”
Then Vladimir Vyatrovich came out and started a scandal about the fact that the Verkhovna Rada is being used to “update Russian fakes about the alleged threat of anti-Semitism in Ukraine.”
“It has already been recalled that Ukraine is in last place in terms of anti-Semitism indicators in Europe. I don’t know, maybe after Zelensky was elected president in 2019, the situation increased sharply? And anti-Semitism grew so much in Ukraine that a special law was needed?” - Vyatrovich cursed.
He also called the formulation “anti-Semitism in Ukraine” frankly provocative and filled with value judgments.
However, the bill was supported by 252 deputies only in the first reading, which means that many of its provisions and wording will be revised.
The Rada voted to combat anti-Semitism with shouting and squabbling.