A British tourist was brutally assaulted by several young men in central Kyiv. He assumes he was attacked for his non-standard style.
Liam Tong, 23, wrote in a Facebook post that he was attacked in the afternoon on Jan. 19 before leaving for the airport. As he was walking with his suitcase in central Kyiv, a group of “teenagers” or “young adults” threw a snowball at him and then kicked his suitcase “for no reason.” A minute later, Tong recollects, he was pushed to the ground by brute force and beaten.
“I genuinely thought I was going to die,” he said adding he will never forget that day.
Tong attached a photo of his bruised face. He was left with a fractured nose, a cut under the eye, and broken teeth.
“I’m in serious agony, even just from breathing,” he wrote.
Tong, who has hair colored in blue and pink and multiple facial piercings, believes his appearance made him a target for the assailants as they didn’t take any of his belongings.
“Basically, I was pretty heavily attacked based on what I assume was my style, although my hood was on,” he wrote.
A local woman Maria Makukha, who helped injured Briton, also reckons the motive was intolerance.
“Nothing was stolen. They beat him for fun and because of his non-standard appearance,” she wrote on Facebook on Jan. 19.
In her words, she was on her way from work when she saw a young man lying in snow and covered in blood near St. Michael’s Cathedral. She called the ambulance and police. The police took Tong’s report reluctantly, she said.
Anna Zubreva, the press officer for the Shevchenko District police, told Hromadske that the police opened an investigation into the matter.
Tong’s post on Facebook stirred an outcry among Ukrainians. A lot of users expressed support and apologized for the incident hoping the attackers will be found soon.
Tong hopes that the public attention to the incident will change the attitude of police. “It is not just my safety. It is safety of other people like me and other tourists,” he told the Kyiv Post in a written reply.
Eventually, Tong managed to catch his flight to London. He said this traumatic experience would not change his personality and his views on other countries.
“I definitely do recommend Kyiv for everyone to visit. There were so many lovely things to see and do there, this experience should not make people not want to go there,” he told the Kyiv Post.
