Lawyers to UN: Black Lives Matter ‘In Times of War and in Times of Peace’

(Bloomberg) -- A coalition of human-rights lawyers is urging the United Nations to do more to protect Black people and other racial and ethnic minorities who are fleeing Ukraine, an appeal that comes after reports of racist treatment at the border.

Lawyers including civil-rights attorney Ben Crump and international human-rights attorney Jasmine Rand, who both represented the family of George Floyd, on Wednesday issued a letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights urging the organization to take action following reports that Africans and other racial minorities in Ukraine were blocked from leaving the country by border guards and others. The letter urges the UN to issue executive orders directing governments to treat people of color equitably and admit them across borders at the same rates as others.

“People of African descent and Black people in Ukraine are facing, really, one war waged by Russians and another war waged against them by racism,” said Rand. She said social-media and video reports that show a double standard of treatment that is an example of institutional racism. “These are war crimes that are being committed on top of being in an active war zone. This is really a continuation of what has become the Black Lives Matter movement. We have to ensure that Black lives matter in times of war and in times of peace.”

The letter, which is also signed by lawyers in the U.K., Kenya, Nigeria and Jamaica, says the coalition “will work as a collective to hold any nation committing war crimes against persons on the basis of racial discrimination accountable before international tribunals.” Crump said that social media has been useful not only in documenting the treatment of Black people at Ukrainian borders, but to get more people talking about it.

“Social media has driven this conversation across borders,” he said. “What I can do is go on my social media and share with people who I interact with and say, ‘look at this racism.'”

The coalition also calls on the UN to address the media about coverage that might perpetuate stereotypes. The Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association last week denounced several examples of what it called racist news coverage contrasting the crisis in Ukraine with the crises in other parts of the world.

“We absolutely see these racial stereotypes come to the surface and the coverage of it and seems to really reflect this very deep racism and xenophobia that, many of us have been arguing, has been underlying the response of Europe to refugees from other regions of the world,” said Serena Parekh, a professor of philosophy at Northeastern University.

An estimated 470,000 people from other countries called Ukraine home, according to the UN's International Organization for Migration. Many of them were migrant workers and students.

The UN has acknowledged reports of racist treatment as refugees pour out of Ukraine. “There have been disturbing indications of discrimination against African and Asian nationals while fleeing, and the Office will be watching this situation attentively,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on Thursday.

As residents have tried to escape to Poland and other neighboring countries, they say they have been prevented from getting on trains, beaten by guards, and segregated into separate lines from White people. The chairperson of the African Union, including Senegalese president Macky Sall, on Feb. 28 issued a statement calling such treatment “shockingly racist and in breach international law.” They urged the countries bordering Ukraine to “show the same empathy and support to all people fleeing war notwithstanding their racial identity.”

IOM Director General António Vitorino added in a statement issued March 3 that he was “alarmed about verified credible reports of discrimination, violence and xenophobia against third country nationals attempting to flee the conflict in Ukraine.” He urged the states bordering Ukraine to grant evacuees “unhindered access to territory, regardless of status and in accordance with International Humanitarian Law.”