Jūl 09 2014

• President of Latvia Andris Berzins proclaimed the Introduction or Preamble to the Constitution of Latvia
• Ex-Head of the Constitution Protection Bureau Janis Kazocins: despite all, integration slowly goes forward

Yesterday, the President of Latvia Andris Berzins proclaimed the Introduction or Preamble to the Constitution of Latvia. Commenting the adoption of the Preamble, the MP Boriss Cilevics (Concord Centre) said that everyone understands that it is a tool for internal usage for crackdown and that the Preamble spoiled Latvia’s reputation on an international political arena. As reported, the Saeima adopted the Introduction to the Constitution which says that establishment of Latvian state was based upon the irrevocable will of the ethnic Latvian nation in order to guarantee existence and development of Latvian language, and culture through centuries.  Vesti Segodnya, Latvijas Avize

Latvijas Avize interviews ex-Head of the Constitution Protection Bureau Janis Kazocins. Speaking about Russia’s policy on protecting its compatriots abroad, Mr Kazocins says that Russia may use Russian speaking residents of Latvia and non-citizens for its interests. At the same time, Mr Kazocins stresses that there are positive tendencies about the decrease of the number of non-citizens in Latvia.  Thus, the number of non-citizens has substantially decreased since 1995 (from 29% down to 13%) and almost half of them are older than 60 years. He also mentions that during the 2013, 89% of children born in the families of non-citizens were registered as Latvian citizens. Mr Kazocins believes that despite all, integration slowly goes forward and Russian speaking residents of Latvia have no interest to be liberated by Russia from "the yoke of the EU and Mr. Usakovs". Mr. Kazocins believes those 300,000 Latvian citizens who voted in favour of Russian as a second state language are not necessarily disloyal towards Latvia. There should be no censorship of the media and if TV channels from Russia broadcast propaganda, this should be countered by local media to uncover the truth.