Eduard Dolinsky, leader of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, a Kiev-based organization representing Ukrainian Jews, tweeted last Sunday: “Ukraine’s National Police department demanded from the Jewish community of Kolomiya to provide police the list of all Jews with addresses and mobile phones and Jewish students in universities with addresses and phones. It is explained as fight against transnational criminal gangs.”
Ukraine’s National Police department demanded from the Jewish community of Kolomiya to provide police the list of all Jews with addresses and mobile phones and Jewish students in universities with addresses and phones. It is explained as fight against transnational criminal gangs pic.twitter.com/re7foVcgHi
— Eduard Dolinsky (@edolinsky)
Yakov Zalishchiker, the community leader who received the letter that was signed by regional police official Myhaylo Bank and asking for those personal details on behalf of investigations by the department of strategic investigation into “ethnic” and “transnational crime groups,” told CBS News that when he told Dolinsky about the letter, the latter thought it was a joke.
But then Zalishchiker shared the contents of the letter with Dolinsky, who became outraged, and tweeted about the Kiev police’s outrageous move.
On Tuesday, Dolinsky posted on Facebook: The national police of Ukraine began an official investigation into why the [regional] police needed the list of Jews. The statement followed the interference of Israel’s Ambassador to Ukraine and the appeal of the People’s Deputies.
“The head of the National Police Igor Klimenko said: ‘I want to convince community members: we will not allow any manifestation of citizens on national or other signs. All police officers are working to prevent anti-Semitic hate crimes, and if these are committed, they react immediately and investigate.”
But on Wednesday, Dolinsky shared a post by Mikhael Tkach, head of the United Jewish Community, reporting that police refused to initiate a criminal investigation of anti-Semitic graffiti in Mariupol.” Apparently, police did not find a basis for a criminal probe of in a call for “Death to [expletive] Jewish women.”