• U.S. Department of State Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues Douglas Davidson again visited Latvia
• Aleksandrs Gaponenko presented collection of articles “Ethnic Conflicts in Baltic States. Post Soviet period”

Newspapers report about a visit of the U.S. Department of State Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues Douglas Davidson to Latvia. Mr Davidson met with several Saeima’s factions discussing the issue of restitution of Jewish properties lost during the Holocaust. Mr Davidson also visited Bauska (town in the central part of Latvia) in order to discuss with representative of the town council establishment of a monument to the victims of Holocaust. The Council of Jewish Communities in Latvia who elaborated the project of the monument unsuccessfully tried to receive the approval of the town council for it for several years. However, also in a conversation with Mr Davidson the Mayor of Bauska explained that the project of the monument does not fit the historical part of the town where it supposed to be placed. At the same time, the Bauska town council approved establishment of a monument to three police battalions of Latvian Waffen SS legionnaires in Bauska which title says “To the liberators of Bauska against second Soviet occupation. Latvia should be ethnic Latvian state.” This was already a third visit of the Special Envoy for Holocaust Douglas Davidson to Latvia. Vesti Segodnya, Latvijas Avize

Vesti Segodnya reports about a collection of articles “Ethnic Conflicts in Baltic States. Post Soviet period” presented by the director of the European Studies Institute, one of the leaders of the Parliament of Unrepresented Aleksandrs Gaponenko. The collection contains articles about discrimination of ethnic minorities in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

• Record number of application for residence permits from foreign investors received in past two months

In July and August, the Citizenship and Migration Affairs Office (OCMA) registered the highest number of applications for residence permits from foreign investors. 178 applications were received in July and 159 in August. In average, the OCMA received 131 per month applications for residence permit from investors during this year. Latvijas Avize

• MP Raivis Dzintars asked one of the Unity leaders Solvita Aboltina to explain the position of the Unity regarding the transition of ethnic minority schools into Latvian language

The MP Raivis Dzintars (nationalists’ union All for Latvia!/FF-LNIM) appealed with an open letter to the Saeima’s Speaker, one of the Unity leaders Solvita Aboltina asking to explain the position of the Unity regarding the transition of ethnic minority schools into Latvian language. Such appeal was made following the statement of the MEP, member of the political party Unity Karlis Sadurskis that all state funded education should be in Latvian language only. Raivis Dzintras stressed that his party recently proposed to transfer all schools into Latvian but it was refused by other members of the governing coalition. Solvita Aboltina did not reply on the Mr Dzintars’ appeal yet but trough her press secretary explained that Mr Sadurskis voiced his own opinion and the party does not share it. Vesti Segodnya, Latvijas Avize

• School director criticizes the MEP Karlis Sadurskis statement about transition of all state funded schools into Latvian language only
• Government’s working group will discuss proposals on legal provisions concerning residence permits for foreign investors

Commenting the recent statement of the MEP from Latvia Karlis Sadurskis that education in all state funded schools should be in Latvian language only, director of one of the Riga secondary schools said that such proposal will not save education system in Latvia. The director highlights that there are no Russian language schools in Latvia but ethnic minority schools which bilingually implement licensed and accredited education programs. The director also criticizes Sadurskis’ statement that education system in one language would let to increase teachers’ wages. The director believes that the problems with education system are not caused by expensive bilingual education but by existing management of education policy. The director also believes that now it is more important to decide what to do in order to prevent mass scale immigration of young people from the country. Vesti Segodnya

The government coalition parties decided to establish a working group discussing the proposal of the nationalists’ union All for Latvia!/FF-LNIM to cancel legal provisions on granting residence permits to foreign investors. As other coalition partners do not support the nationalists’ proposal, the working group will try to find compromise proposals.  Vesti Segodnya

• One of the leaders of an NGO “Democratic Patriots” Liene Cipule: first of all, it is important to speak about integration of non-citizens

One of the leaders of an NGO “Democratic Patriots” Liene Cipule in an interview with Diena states that there are no civil political parties in Latvia because all parties more or less are with ethnic distinctions. According to Mrs Cipule, it is absurd to assume that ethnic Latvians are a priori “loyal” but Russians “disloyal” towards the state. Mrs Cipule believes that talks about integration for person who is Latvian citizen regardless of ethnic belonging are insulting and, first of all, it is important to speak about integration of non-citizens because it is also absurd that there are so many non-citizens in the state.