• Sarmite Elerte: education in ethnic minorities’ schools in Russian is absurd
• Congress of Non-Citizens appealed to the U.S. President Barack Obama
• Nationalists: foreigners who buy real estate suppress ethnic Latvian state with foreign languages and cultures

 One of the leaders of the political party “Unity”, member of the Riga City Council Sarmite Elerte in her Twitter account wrote that it is absurd that bilingual education in Belorussian and Ukrainian ethnic minorities’ schools is in native and Russian languages. Other Twitter users, including education experts, commented the Elerte's twit by asserting that education in minority schools is in native and Latvian language and questioned what is the source of Elerte's information which motivated her to make such statement. Vesti Segodnya

Activists of the Congress of Non-Citizens sent the President of the United States of America Barack Obama an appeal telling about the problem of large scale non-citizenship in Latvia. The Congress of Non-Citizens asked the U.S. President to raise this issue during his meeting with the President of Latvia Andris Berzins on 30 August. Authors of the appeal put attention on infringement of rights of non-citizens asking the Barack Obama to demand Latvia to stop such practice. Vesti Segodnya

Latvijas Avize reports that the nationalists’ union All for Latvia!/FF-LNIM again launched discussion to revoke the present provisions which envisage opportunity of residence permits for those third-country nationals, who own real estate in Latvia. The nationalists want to cancel such regulations as they believe that the number of real estate sold to foreigners became dramatically high. The nationalists also believe that foreigners from Russia, China and other countries who buy the real estate in Latvia continue what was done to Latvia during the USSR occupation – suppression of ethnic Latvian state with foreign languages and cultures.

 

 

• Yesterday, 123 persons received Latvian citizenship

Yesterday, the government has granted Latvian citizenship to 123 persons who went through the naturalisation procedure. 75% of new citizens are ethnic Russians, 14% are Ukrainians, 11% are Belorussians. 16% of new citizens have elementary education, 62% - secondary, 19% - higher education. In total, 140,992 persons were granted Latvian citizenship since the naturalisation procedure was launched in 1995. Neatkariga

• Head of the coordination council of Russian NGO Viktors Guscins: situation with rights of ethnic minorities will improve after mass influx of immigrants

According to the head of the coordination council of Russian NGO Viktors Guscins, the situation with rights of ethnic minorities in Latvian does not improve. Mr Guscins believes that the situation will improve only after mass influx of immigrants from, for instance, African countries, and ethnic Latvians will understand that Russian speakers mentally are much closer to them than newcomers. Vesti Segodnya

• Politician Aleksandrs Kirsteins: if you do not assimilate you will be assimilated by others

Neatkariga prints an interview with the member of the Riga City Council Aleksandrs Kirsteins (nationalists union All for Latvia/FF-LNIM). According to Mr Kirsteins, Latvia currently faces problems with integration because the only way how to prevent such problem was assimilation of ethnic minorities but the state authorities ignored it 20 years ago and still do. Mr Kirsteins believes that the citizenship should be granted only to assimilated incomers but Latvia has granted citizenship to everyone. Regarding to the issue on restitution of Jewish properties, Mr Kirsteins considers that it is wrong to compensate the loss of Jewish properties during the Holocaust to the association named Council of the Jewish Communities of Latvia because it was established recently and cannot be considered as the direct inheritor of Jewish people who lost their properties.

• Police will not check how the millionaire Sergejs Zaharjins received Latvian citizenship
• Vesti Segodnya: unified examination in Latvian language reduces the chances of graduators of Russian language schools to proceed for university scholarship

The State Police refused to initiate a criminal procedure against the head of the board of the biggest Latvian metallurgical enterprise “Liepajas Metalurgs”, millionaire Sergejs Zaharjins checking whether he legally received Latvian citizenship. Sergejs Zaharjins received Latvian citizenship trough naturalisation procedure in 1999. However, the police received a complaint by a person who asserts that the state language proficiency of Mr Zaharjins is too low and doubts that he could pass the naturalisation procedure legally. Neatkariga

According to Vesti Segodnya, unified state examination in Latvia language reduces the chances of graduators of Russian language schools to proceed for scholarship in the state funded higher education establishment. The main evaluation criteria for admission to higher education establishment are evaluation received in Latvian language examination and in profile subject.  But, considering that for ethnic minority students it is much harder to receive high evaluation in the state language examination than for those for whom Latvian is a native language, the examination reduces the chances of the minority students to receive scholarship. The newspaper reports about a case when a student of a Russian language school who graduated school with excellence, failed to receive scholarship at university due to insufficient evaluation in the Latvian language exam.