DESS: We protect Muslims but ignore the UOC

Zelensky at an Islamic iftar. Photo: OP

The State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) has issued a statement that can, without any exaggeration, be called a textbook example of double standards.

Briefly about the situation. TSN released a story "Dangerous religious extremists already in Ukraine?", in which they discovered ties between Ukraine's Islamic community and the Russian Federation. Muslims took offense and complained to state bodies, including DESS. And now the State Service for Ethnopolitics has stood up for them, stating that "it is very important to distinguish proven facts from assumptions and associative relations."

The key theses of DESS:
• TSN does not comply with journalistic standards and ethics, since "the investigation in the story immediately took on an accusatory bias, and the accused themselves were not given a voice."
• The authors used “inaccurate or emotionally charged wording,” which creates: distrust toward religious communities, stigmatization of Ukrainian citizens based on their faith, and an increase in internal tension that benefits the enemy.
• Muslims are part of the Ukrainian political nation who "defend the state, suffer from Russian missiles and work for victory."
• TSN must remember that "in wartime, responsibility for what is said increases manifold."

Beautiful and wise words that are hard to argue with. But why do they only apply to Muslims, who make up about one percent of Ukraine’s population? Why don’t we hear statements from the State Service for Ethnopolitics in defense of the UOC, against which the media (including TSN) have been systematically inciting hatred for many years? The number of such reports has long run into the hundreds. Don’t they create “distrust toward religious communities, stigmatization of Ukrainian citizens based on their faith, and an increase in internal tension that benefits the enemy”?

Isn't the UOC "part of the Ukrainian political nation"? Don't its believers "defend the state, suffer from Russian missiles and work for victory"? Doesn't slander and incitement of hatred against them destroy the unity of the country?

The answers are obvious to everyone – except, it seems, to the authorities. They leap to defend a handful of Muslims – many of them from other ethnicities – while pointedly refusing to notice the persecution of millions of Orthodox Ukrainians.

Although, why say "refusing to notice"? It seems they are orchestrating it.

Read also