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The past few weeks have been eye-opening for American Jews. I would have never believed that numerous celebrities could post videos of Louis Farrakhan, Ice Cube could post bizarre anti-Semitic conspiracies, and Desean Jackson as well as Nick Cannon could engage in classic and undeniable anti-Semitism with virtually no broad-based condemnation. There will always be those who stand up against hate no matter where it comes from Jemele Hill, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Charles Barkley come to mind as recent examples. But, those courageous few are unfortunately the exception rather than the rule.

The reason that the toleration of anti-Semitism seems so surprising is that it is being tolerated by those who are supposed to be standing up for groups that are victims of prejudice. Who would have thought that progressives those who spend their days being angry on other groups behalf would somehow let anti-Semitism slip? I sure wouldnt have. But, then again, nobody else did either.

The root of progressive anti-Semitism, however, becomes much more clear once the thin veil of tolerance and acceptance is understood for what it truly is a fragile faade that will crumble at the slightest touch. The truth is that progressives look at Jews as just another group of oppressive white people that are taking advantage of the poor, the working class and the various oppressed minority groups in America. This is a message that finds its chief megaphone in Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. While people claim that Farrakhan and Nation Of Islam are irrelevant fringe actors, the truth is that they have found themselves in positions of tremendous influence. This influence has made its way into mainstream American discourse.

Progressives who subscribe to Nation of Islams pernicious philosophy see the financial success of American Jews, the political success of the State of Israel, and assume that there must have been foul play involved. To them, every disparity can be attributed to discrimination. To them, if that is not worthy of hate, then nothing is.

The issue with this narrative is that it is an outright lie. Over half of all hate crimes committed due to prejudice against a religious group are committed against Jews and all indicators available suggest that anti-Semitism is rising once again. In New York, anti-Semitism accounts for more than half of all hate crimes. It is ignorant at best, malicious at worst, to claim that anti-Semitism is merely an issue of the past. Moreover, we cannot discuss anti-Semitism in a context that ignores the Middle East and the state of Israel. With Irans supreme leader putting out a call for a final solution just weeks ago as well as Hamas Charter, still today, calling for the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews around the world, anti-Semitism in America is just the tip of the iceberg.

While anti-Semitism in America seems to have died down tremendously over the past 70 years, and the numbers show that it has, the fact that this singular form of hate is still pervasive in some communities as well as seemingly acceptable in our popular culture and among celebrities is undoubtedly startling. This is not evidence of oppression against American Jews the Jewish people have a far too long history of true oppression to claim that the United States in 2020 can even be compared to our past but rather it is evidence of prejudice that is readily ignored by those who would like to ignore it.

The true irony is that neither anti-Semitism, nor anti-Zionism, (but I repeat myself) are progressive in any true sense of the word.

If progressives see it as their duty to stand up for groups that have historically been victimized, it is truly impossible to understand how Jews could be left out of that equation. The only way to create a fictional history absent of Jewish oppression is one where the Holocaust never happened, there was no anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union and there is no anti-Semitism in the Middle East. To claim any of the antecedent phenomena never took place would be to engage in historical revisionism as well as anti-Semitism of the highest order.

Beyond anti-Semitism in general, anti-Zionism in particular is not progressive in any real way either. Defining the term will help explain why.

Zionism is, in its most simple terms, the Jewish right to self-determination. Moral humans generally, and progressives in particular, should be standing for the self-determination of all people. So, to somehow come to the conclusion that by standing for the right of self-determination for all groups with the exception of Jews is somehow progressive seems more than a little odd.

It is not only anger-inducing, but also thoroughly depressing, to see the willing and, at times, prideful ignorance of the faux-progressives that occupy our media, popular culture and college campuses. For those who continue to readily ignore some hate, they must realize that anti-Semitism has a long and ugly history one that refusing to acknowledge will not suffice to make it disappear.

Jack Elbaum will be attending George Washington University in the fall. His writing has been featured in outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and the Washington Examiner. You can contact him at jackelbaum16@gmail.com

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Progressives, Stop Ignoring Anti-Semitism | Jack Elbaum | The Blogs - The Times of Israel

13th November 1953: Members of Supreme Court. Seated, Felix Frankfurter (far left) and William O ... [+] Douglas (far right). Standing, Robert H. Jackson (second from left). (Photo by George Tames/New York Times Co./Getty Images)

Felix Frankfurter was a man of the Left. He wrote often for The New Republic, and he helped found the ACLU. He lobbied the United States to recognize the Soviet Union during the Russian Civil War. He was the foremost proponent of a new trial for the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti.

While Frankfurter was agitating and organizing as a professor at Harvard Law School in the 1910s and 20s, the Supreme Court was striking down state licensing requirements, consumer-protection rules, and wage-and-hour laws. Like many on the Left of that day, therefore, Frankfurter believed in judicial restraint. Justice Louis Brandeis captured the contemporary progressive attitude in a 1932 dissent. It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system, he wrote, that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.

Brandeiss great ally on the court was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. It was not progressive principle that made Holmes a restrained judge; it was a bullet in the neck in the Civil War. What damned fools people are who believe things, he once told the socialist professor Harold Laski. Although he said it of a pacifist in a case before the court, the line captures how he saw most things, including judging. Oddly enough, the idealistic Frankfurter worshiped the cynical Holmes. A justice willing to uphold social legislation he thought pointless, even ridiculous, was in Frankfurters eyes the pattern of a sound judge. This might explain why Frankfurters own judicial principles would remain fixed as times changed.

And change they did. Frankfurter became a justice in 1939. The next year, on behalf of an 8-1 majority of the court, he declared that the First Amendment has nothing to say about the expulsion from school of Jehovahs Witnesses who refuse to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States. Local governments must, Frankfurter thought, have the authority to safeguard the nations fellowship. Just three years later, however, in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), the court voted 6-to-3 to overturn Frankfurters opinion. If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, Justice Robert Jackson wrote for the majority, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.

Now in dissent, Frankfurter fumed about judges who write their private notions of policy into the Constitution. It must be remembered, he wrote, quoting Holmes, that legislatures are ultimate guardians of the liberties and welfare of the people in quite as great a degree as the courts. True, but not a very compelling point in a case about forcing schoolchildren to swear an oath against their (and their parents) will.

Shortly after the First World War, in fact, Holmes had started to take a more expansive view of the Free Speech Clause. When men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, he explained in dissent in Abrams v. United States (1919), they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas. When it came to free speech, Holmes could use his old philosophical skepticism to justify a new judicial assertiveness. His pivot was driven in part by distress at the persecution Frankfurter and Laski suffered at Harvard for their radical views. Yet Frankfurter himself remained in awe of the Holmes who told Laski, just a year after Abrams, that if the people want to go to hell, a judges job is to help them along.

Frankfurter clashed often with a group of justices, led by William Brennan and William Douglas, who placed little stock in text, precedent, or history. This activist wing became increasingly dominant. Frankfurters hour was pastor, rather, had never come. When Brennan, writing for the court in Baker v. Carr (1962), overturned a raft of precedents on the way to declaring that legislative redistricting decisions can be challenged in court, Frankfurter issued a long and bitter dissent, suffered a stroke, and retired.

Frankfurter complained that the courts hard left produced opinions that were shoddy and result-oriented. He might have added anarchic. In 1968 a man wore a jacket emblazoned with the words F*** the Draft in a courthouse. He was arrested and prosecuted for disturbing the peace ... by offensive conduct. In his final months on the court, John Marshall Harlan wrote the decision in the mans appeal. An heir, in many ways, of Holmes, Brandeis, and Frankfurter, Harlan set a trend for many later conservative justices by evolving on the bench. His opinion in Cohen v. California (1971) declared the protester's conviction inconsistent with the First Amendment.

Because the offensive-conduct statute applied throughout the state, the defendant, Harlan concluded, was not on notice that certain kinds of otherwise permissible speech or conduct would ... not be tolerated in certain places. Harlan dodged the key questionwhat counts as offensive conduct in a courthouseby denying that the law can turn on context or matters of degree. Having thus oversimplified the case (and infantilized every citizen), he was free to ask simply whether a state may ban the use of expletives in public. At that point he could at least have knocked down his straw man with a straightforward no. Instead Harlan offered a paean to vulgar relativism, a tract now remembered mainly for the assertion that one mans vulgarity is anothers lyric. As Robert Bork noted in The Tempting of America, that statement is a challenge to all laws on all subjects. After all, one mans larceny is anothers just distribution of goods.

Does Cohen remain a totem of left-wing free-speech jurisprudence? The courts progressives seem to have reversed gear. Take the courts decision earlier this month in Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants Inc. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act bans almost all robocalls to cell phones. The Act contains an exception for robocalls that seek to collect a debt owed to the federal government. At issue in Barr was whether this carveout violates the First Amendment. While acknowledging that robocalls are widely despised, the court concluded, by a vote of 6-to-3, that the government nonetheless may not engage in content-based discrimination, baselessly favoring some robocalls over others.

Writing for himself and Justices Ginsburg and Kagan, Justice Breyer argued in dissent that robocalls are not vital to core First Amendment objectives, such as protecting peoples ability to speak or to transmit their views to government. Congress, in Breyers view, should have greater leeway to impose ordinary regulatory programs that pose little threat to the exchange of thought. Maybe sobut this is not the outlook on display in Cohen. Say the government prohibits writing political statements on tax returns. According to the Barr dissent, it is hard to imagine that such a rule would threaten political speech in the marketplace of ideas. Dont count on the wing of the court that let a man say F*** the Draft in a courthouse in 1968 to let you say F*** Taxes on a tax form today.

Why has the courts left wing lost its enthusiasm for free-speech absolutism? One factor is the emergence on the court of a right wing that upholds the free-speech rights of corporations. No longer the only ones patrolling constitutional boundaries, the progressives are more careful about loose rights talk.

Another factor might soon come to the fore. If the Left conquers American culture, sheds liberal values, and becomes a force for conformity, will the progressive justices shift in turn? In the case of a child expelled from school for refusing to acknowledge, and renounce, her privilege, would they chastise the wielders of power and discuss the fixed star in our constitutional constellation? Or would they gain a new understanding of Justice Frankfurters belief in the value of making parents accept the training of [their] children in good citizenship? In the appeal of a man charged with offensive conduct for wearing, amid a hostile crowd, a jacket maligning political correctness, would they use Cohen to lecture the easily offended about simply avert[ing] their eyes to avoid further bombardment of their sensitivities? Or might they suddenly see wisdom in the Cohen dissenters claim that absurd and immature antic[s] are conduct rather than speech?

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The Protean Progressive Free Speech Clause - Forbes

WASHINGTON, July 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --The following statement was issued by Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), in regard to President Trump's Executive Order mandating that only legal U.S. residents be counted in the Census for the purpose of apportioning congressional representation:

"Today's Executive Order by President Trump is an honest attempt to ensure that the Constitutional mandate to count every person residing in the United States and guarantee full and fair representation to every citizen and lawful immigrant will be carried out.

"For decades, the inclusion of illegal aliens in the Census tally for the purpose of apportioning representation in Congress has resulted in American citizens and legal immigrants being denied representation. The practice has also robbed Americans in some states of federal resources and awarded federal dollars to states with large populations of illegal aliens. Often, the states that gain representation and federal resources encourage illegal immigration through sanctuary policies and generous benefits to illegal aliens.

"The president's order instructs the Department of Commerce to use all available data to identify illegal residents and subtract them from the reapportionment count. While the available data cannot identify every illegal resident, Supreme Court precedent affirms the president's authority to act on the information that is available.

"The apportionment of federal representation is a zero-sum game. Additional seats in Congress are awarded to some states because they have large illegal alien populations, meaning that other states and their citizens lose seats and federal money. The process of including illegal aliens in the Census count for the purpose of reapportionment, as it has been practiced in recent decades, is fundamentally unfair to law-abiding Americans, and the president should be applauded for taking long overdue action to safeguard their interests and constitutional rights."

Contact: Matthew Tragesser, 202-328-7004 or [emailprotected]

ABOUT FAIR

Founded in 1979, FAIR is the country's largest immigration reform group. With over 2 million members and supporters nationwide, FAIR fights for immigration policies that serve national interests, not special interests. FAIR believes that immigration reform must enhance national security, improve the economy, protect jobs, preserve our environment, and establish a rule of law that is recognized and enforced.

SOURCE Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)

http://www.fairus.org

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FAIR: Census Should Count Everyone, but Illegal Aliens Should Not Get Representation at the Expense of Legal Residents - PRNewswire

The nation's political direction has become a concern for many Ukrainians.

The message many are receiving now is very different from the one of hope and pledges of reform they put their faith in at last years elections.

In recent months, Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was elected in 2019 on the promise of wide-reaching reforms to battle corruption and improve the economy, has sacked and replaced the government for being inept.

Former prime minister, Oleksiy Honcharuk, was fired in March, along with several of his ministers, the Ukrainian prosecutor general, Ruslan Riaboshapka, and other officials. Honcharuk and Riaboshapka, who were well-regarded in the West, have since expressed their concern about the direction of Ukraine, where they feel the malign influence of powerful people on the countrys economy is growing.

Since early March, when Zelenskyy changed the government for no apparent reason with unknown people, there has been no direction in the government, Anders slund, an economist and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told Euronews.

We have seen that Zelenskyys new people have undone everything that was done before. It seems for me that it is done to restore corruption and oligarchs seem to influence this development.

Everything is getting destroyed.

The hope for a better future which prevailed when Zelenskyy was elected has gone, he adds. slund is not the only one who is sceptical about what is going on inside Ukraine, where the government, he says, is turning away from anti-corruption measures and western-style reforms.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently provided Ukraine with a $5 billion (4.4 billion) loan to battle COVID-19, but noted in a report that reforms increasingly faced resistance from vested interests, and court rulings were undermining reform progress, especially in tackling corruption and financial sector reforms.

At the beginning of July, the governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, Yakiv Smolii, handed in his resignation because of systematic political pressure, which, he said, makes it impossible for me, as chairman, to effectively manage the National Bank. Some experts see the dismissal as yet another example of the deteriorating situation in Ukraine, where they fear that the independence of the Ukrainian National Bank is under pressure, which could jeopardise the countrys IMF loan.

Aleksey Jakubin, who is an associate professor at Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and an expert in Ukrainian politics, told Euronews that it is all too easy to claim that the time for reforms in is over; in part because reforms take a long time, but also because the previous government under Honcharuk was incompetent. The Presidents party Servant of the People had a majority in parliament, so therefore Honcharuk had every opportunity to push reforms over the line during his tenure, says Jakubin.

But the reforms of the government of Honcharuk had no visible effects, and it seems that they were not ready to understand the situation in the economy, says Jakubin, I think that the new government led by prime minister Denys Shmyhal is much more realistic than Honcharuk, who acted under his own personal economic, social and political visions, maybe neo-liberal, while Shmyhal is much more technical and looks at the Ukrainian situation.

Jakubin is, however, worried that Ukraine is unable to shake off its toxicity, making it more difficult for the country to reform itself while also putting more pressure on reformers who want to implement change.

People with business interests in Ukraine are also becoming increasingly worried. In an email to the Kyiv Post, Tomas Fiala, the CEO of Dragon Capital, wrote that: We will put new investments on hold as the authorities have been doing for the last five months exactly the opposite from what investors, both domestic and international, expect from them and advise them. This is the last straw.

Pavlo Kutuev, the chair of the sociology department at the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, says that Western experts and investors may have put too many expectations for Zelenskyy and that we are seeing now is simply a return to how things are normally done in Ukraine.

It is an exaggeration to say that the time for reforms is over. I have never been too optimistic about the ambitions and hopes for modernisation and reforms in Ukraine, says Kutuev. We can say that the neo-liberal ideas, seen under Honcharuk, and Western hopes for rapid reforms in Ukraine are partly over, because we have seen, in my view, a return to reality in Ukrainian politics.

Kutuev says that Ukraine is a complex country with a lot of social and economic problems that need to be dealt with. The country is still scarred by its Soviet past, too. To paraphrase the title of Lenins 1904 book, reforms in Ukraine, he says, are often is one step forward and two steps back.

Tymofiy Mylovanov, on the other hand, who was the former economy minister before the presidents cabinet reshuffle back in March, is definitely someone who sees the window of opportunity to reform Ukraine waning.

Mylovanov decided to resign after Honcharuk was dismissed as prime minister as he did not agree with the views of the new team brought in by the president. While Zelenskyy was effective in disrupting the political system, it is unclear what the strategy is now, he contends.

I see the typical rhetoric now. That we need to support the Ukrainian economy, need to increase pension, need to trade more. Still, it is standard things to hear from politicians all over the world, says Mylovanov, who now is the head of the Kyiv School of Economics. This is standard politics, but I do not see a clear and consistent approach now and, therefore, the window for change appears to be limited.

Shortly after the government reshuffle, officials appointed to fight corruption pervasive in the economy - often the most corrupt sector - were also removed. Among them was Maxim Nefyodov, who was the head of the State Customs Service. He had been set the ambitious goal of cutting corrupt customs practices in half over 18 months but found himself out of a job after less than a year.

The time for reforms in Ukraine is over, he told Euronews. The signal that the government is now sending to people is this: being a reformer means that you will be harassed, get bad PR and that you will have no political future.

While being a bad guy, who is not reforming the system, means that you will be fine and have no problems. It is the signal the government is sending because the patience and willingness in the political system are gone, and the bad guys just need to wait us out.

Immediately after taking office, he said he was followed in the streets and attacked in the media by opponents because he tried to change the corrupt system which benefitted smugglers and some oligarchs who were not happy and wanted to fight back. He expected this but hoped for better support from the president, which diminished quickly.

The official explanation for Nefyodovs dismissal was that he was ineffective in his role and that he did not deliver the promised results. While Nefyodov argues that he could have done more, reforms take time, he says, adding that he couldnt solve customs corruption in a matter of months when several thousands of cars and trucks need to be checked every day.

After his dismissal, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) started investigating Nefyodov for corruption, which some Western experts such as slund see as merely a political move. The NABU case is now closed, Nefyodov said.

Zelenskyy brought in a young - and mostly politically inexperienced - team last year when he first won the presidency and later a majority in parliament. The new government was a great source of hope among Ukrainians; partly because it had a majority, but also because it brought with it new faces and tall ambitions. However, in the last few months, the presidents approval rate has plummeted to 38 per cent from being higher than 50 per cent right after his election. While many experts and former politicians are raising concerns, not all experts agree.

Responding to claims made by Mylovanov and Nefyodov, chairman of the Penta Center of Applied Political Studies, Volodymyr Fesenko believes that they should have known that the political environment in Ukraine is tough and competitive, and that they were real concerns about their suitability.

The main reasons for the dismissal of those who complained to you are that they were weak reformers and even weaker politicians, who did not know how to build communication with other political actors and did not know how to work with public opinion, he said.

They did not have a strategy and tactics for reform. In Ukraine, reforms that are carried out by political coalitions and only reform teams are successful. Single reformers tend to lose.

Fesenko agrees that it is difficult to change things when governments are often dismissed, but he does not believe the window for reforms is closing in Ukraine. He still sees reform-friendly ministers in government and agrees that Zelenskyy wanted people with more experience.

We must also consider the psychology of President Zelenskyy, who does not want to wait long for results and expects quick and effective results from his ministers. Ukrainian voters do not want to wait either, Fesenko says, pointing out that Ukraine has seen several reforms approved, such as land reforms which enable the sale of agricultural land, and a new banking law."

However, slund contends that those reforms were carried out only because the IMF was twisting Ukraines arm and leveraging its multi-billion dollar loan to combat the economic effects of COVID-19.

Mylovanov and Nefyodov deny being inefficient but instead argue that the real problem is the lack of political stability and the attacks from the opposition and oligarch-controlled media.

Sergii Verlanov, who was the head of the Ukrainian State Tax Service and was also fired after a few months in office, says that Zelenskyys government could have done better - and that the current developments in the country are worrying.

In 2019, we met the revenue target in the State Tax Service for the first time in many years, and I was, therefore, not dismissed because I was underperforming, he says. I dont know why I was sacked, but the government sends a signal to everyone that it is going for the quick wins rather than the lengthy reforms. It might be better for your approval ratings now, but it does not give success in the long run and will not change the system.

Verlanov says that while he must give credit to the Ukrainian parliament for passing more than 60 laws, some of which could bring about real change, many of them never got implemented. Like Nefyodov, Verlanov is also being probed after his dismissal. According to Ukrainian media, the SBU, Ukraines Secret Service, has opened an investigation claiming that he is laundering funds to finance terrorism, an accusation which Verlanov says is ridiculous and common practice to discredit people being removed from office.

According to Mylovanov, Ukraine may need to learn that it cannot change its government all the time, in the same way, a young person would need to learn realities the hard way. He notes that Ukraine has had 18 different prime ministers since it gained its independence from the Soviet Union 29 years ago.

I also fear that the current prime minister, Denys Smygal, will not last long, he adds. Ukraine needs to stick with people long [enough] for things to change, but it seems like the only people fighting for the government in Ukraine is the prime minister and the president. Everyone else wants to dismantle the system for personal gains or other reasons. It is a toxic environment.

Euronews contacted Yulia Mendel, the press officer for President Zelenskyy, for comment. She has not responded.

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Corruption in Ukraine: Is time running out for Zelenskyy to reform the country? - Euronews

July 13, 2020

Dmytro Kuleba

Minister of Foreign Affairs

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine

1, Mykhailivska Sq.

Kyiv, 01018

Telephone: +38 (044) 238-16-57, +38 (044) 238-18-88E-mail: zsmfa@mfa.gov.ua

Maryna LazebnaMinister of Social Policy

Ministry of Social Policy of UkraineStr. Esplanadna, 8/10,

Kyiv, 01601

Telephone: (044) 289-86-22, (044) 289-70-60E-mail: infozapit@mlsp.gov.ua

Dear Ministers Kuleba and Lazebna,

Please accept our greetings on behalf of Human Rights Watch. We are writing to urge your ministries to recommend that Ukraine ratify the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention). which seeks to prevent and combat domestic and sexual violence against women and has been signed by all European Union (EU) member states.

Human Rights Watch is an independent international organization that works in over 90 countries to defend peoples rights. Human Rights Watch does not receive funding from any government. Our organization has conducted research on womens rights, in particular violence against women and domestic violence, in dozens of countries around the world, including Turkey, Armenia, and other countries in the Council of Europe region.

We recently became aware of President Volodymyr Zelenskys statement regarding his intent to submit the Istanbul Convention for ratification to the Verkhovna Rada, once the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry for Social Policy take proper action. We understand that he made this statement in response to letters and petitions he received, signed by tens of thousands of people, urging him to submit the convention for ratification.

Ukraine took an important step towards enhancing protection for women from violence when it signed the Istanbul Convention nine years ago. It is now time for Ukraine to join the 34 Council of Europe member states that have ratified it.

Violence against women remains a serious problem of public concern in Ukraine. A 2019 survey led by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) found that in Ukraine, Most women are concerned about the issue of violence against women, with 64 percent saying it is a common occurrence. Two-thirds (67 percent) of women state that they have experienced psychological, physical or sexual violence at the hands of a partner or non-partner since the age of 15.

In 2017, in its concluding observations on Ukraines eighth periodic report, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) observed that since 2014, ongoing violence in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and pervasive corruption have contributed to an increase in the level of violence against women by State and non-State actors and to the reinforcement of traditional and patriarchal attitudes that limit womens and girls enjoyment of their rights. The report expressed concern over the underreporting of domestic and sexual violence, and noted a lack of disaggregated data on the problem and insufficient shelter spaces for women escaping violence. It also notes the need for greater capacity to investigate, document and prosecute cases of sexual violence and strengthening of services and support for survivors. The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated domestic violence in countries around the world, and Ukraine is no exception.

In recent years, Ukraines authorities have taken several important steps towards addressing violence against women. These include the governments commitment in 2015 to UN Sustainable Development Goal 5, on gender equality, and the elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls in the public and private spheres. In 2018, it approved a National Action Plan for the implementation of recommendations made by the UN CEDAW. In reporting on the implementation of CEDAWs recommendations in December 2019, the rapporteur on follow-up called on Ukraines government to accelerate the ratification of the [Istanbul Convention].

These steps also include the adoption of the 2017 Law on Preventing and Countering Domestic Violence, and amendments to the criminal code criminalizing systematic acts of domestic violence. While this legislation is welcome, it requires ongoing commitment to ensure implementation and additional action is needed to address remaining gaps. Expediting ratification of the Istanbul Convention is a crucial step for Ukraine in its fight against domestic violence. It would require the government to uphold minimum standards for preventing violence against women and girls, holding abusers to account, and supporting survivors.

We hope your ministries will take this opportunity to ensure the protection of women against violence by recommending to President Zelensky that he submit the Istanbul Convention to the Rada for ratification. This will help ensure protection from violence for women in Ukraine and will demonstrate to Ukraines international partners the countrys commitment to advancing womens rights.

We thank you for your attention to this matter and we look forward to receiving your response.

Kind regards,

Hugh Williamson Director, Europe and Central Asia Division Human Rights Watch

Amanda KlasingDirector, Women's Rights DivisionHuman Rights Watch

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Letter to the Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine re Istanbul Convention - Human Rights Watch