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.

• Ministry of Justicepresented an informative report on legal regulation concerning incitement of national or ethnic hatred
• Survey: 28% of Latvian non-citizens fluently speak Latvian language

Vesti Segodnya reports about an informative report on legal regulation concerning incitement of national or ethnic hatred prepared by the Ministry of Justice and presented to the Cabinet of Ministers. Presently the Article 78 of the Criminal Law says that a person can be punished with imprisonment up to three years or short-term imprisonment or social services or pecuniary penalty for conscious action aimed at instigation of national, ethnic or racial hatred or discord; and punished with imprisonment up to ten years with (or without) probation period of up to three years for the same action if it involved violence or threats, or committed by a group of persons, or by a state official, or a responsible employee of an enterprise or organisation, or committed using automated data processing system. There are proposals to amend the Article 78: to add liability also for instigation of religious hate or discord and to exclude the word “conscious”. It is also proposed to differentiate sanctions according to who has committed a crime and to stipulate more severe liability for crime involving violence. The Ministry of Justice also proposes to add racial, nationalistic, ethnic, religious or xenophobic motivation to the Article 48 (Aggravating Circumstances). 

According to a survey conducted by the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs, 28% of Latvian non-citizens fluently speak Latvian language, 31% can communicate in Latvian or use simple phrases. There is also a positive tendency on decrease of those non-citizens who are not proficient in Latvian at all. Authors of the survey concluded that the better is the state language proficiency of non-citizens the greater is their desire to receive Latvian citizenship. Vesti Segodnya