Integration monitor is a daily Latvian press digest on ethnic minority and society integration issues. The Monitor reviews the biggest Latvian dailies: Diena, Latvijas Avize, Neatkariga (in Latvian language), Vesti Segodnya (in Russian language). In specific cases other information sources are used. Latvian Centre for Human Rights is not responsible for information published by the media.

 

Integration and Minority Information Service
of the Latvian Centre for Human Rights and Ethnic Studies

• Special Task Minister for Societal Integration, Juris Dobelis, the MP FF/LNNK and Dr Anita Jakobsone discuss integration issues
• Protest meeting For the free choice of language of education will take place on 4th of September
• Comments about the administration of the Latvian Association of National Cultural Societies
• Human rights activist plans to complain to the European Human Rights Court about the writing of his family name in the passport

Rigas Balss features a discussion on integration issues among Nils Muiznieks, the Special Task Minister for Societal Integration, Juris Dobelis, the MP FF/LNNK and Dr Anita Jakobsone. Nils Muiznieks said that there are many integration problems to solve in Latvia and that by creating the Special Task Ministers office for Societal Integration the government decided that social integration is one of its priorities. Juris Dobelis stresses the need to strengthen the positions of Latvian language. He explains that there were serious discussions in the FF/LNNK faction before the vote about Nils Muiznieks candidature for the position of the Special Task Minister for Societal Integration. Regarding the criticism about the work of the Special Task Minister for Societal Integration, Dr Anita Jakobsone stresses that there are no precisely defined criteria to evaluate the necessity of this new institution. Juris Dobelis announces that before the referendum about the Latvias EU membership the FF/LNNK faction will not request the ministers resignation.

The Headquarters of the Opponents to the education reform will organise a protest meeting “For the free choice of language of education” near the monument of the Latvian poet Janis Rainis on 4th of September.

The Headquarters of the Opponents to the education reform will organise a protest meeting For the free choice of language of education near the monument of the Latvian poet Janis Rainis on 4th of September. Vechernaya Riga, Vesti Segodnya, Chas

Chas features the comments of Irina Vinnika, the Head of the department of national minorities of the Special Task Minister for Societal Integration, and Rafi Haradzajan, the Head of the Latvian Association of National Cultural Societies (LANCS), about the governments decision that the state budget grants for LANCS will be administered and controlled by the Ministry of Culture and not by the Secretariat of the Special Task Minister for Societal Integration.

Vesti Segodnya reports that Leonid Raihman, one of the founders of the NGO Latvian Human Rights Committee and currently the representative of the Open Society Institute in Budapest plans to complain to the European Human Rights Court about the fact that his family name in the passport is not written in its original form Raihman, but Raihmans.