• Neatkariga prints an articles about Chinese immigrants living on Latvia
• Latvijas Avize prints an article about activities aimed at society integration

 Neatkariga prints an articles about Chinese immigrants living on Latvia. 85 temporary residence permits got issued to Chinese citizens this year in Latvia. In total, since 2010, 221 Chinese citizens received the residence permit in exchange for investments in the local economy or purchase of expensive real estate. According to the data of the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs, the total amount of investments in Latvian economy made by Chinese who received residence permit is LVL 3,025 372 (EUR 4,274 935). According to Neatkariga, Chinese send their children to local Latvian language schools and want them to learn Latvian. The Chinese most likely are attracted to Latvia by the fact that it is the EU member, it has nice nature, pure air, no restrictions for the birth of children, and no administrative restriction for travelling inside the country.

Latvijas Avize prints an article about activities aimed at society integration. Funding in amount of more than 1 million lats (EUR 1,4 millions) was granted for different integration activities in 2013. According to the article, greater support should be granted for promotion of youth guard, scouts and guides involving also ethnic minority children as those effectively help young people to built national identity.

• Former Latvian non-citizen who became Swedish citizen now can vote in the local elections in Latvia
• Nationalists’ union repeatedly prepared that draft law on transition of all kindergartens into Latvian language only

 Vesti Segodnya interviews a young man, former Latvian non-citizen who moved to Sweden and received Swedish citizenship. The young man now is registered in Latvia as permanent resident of the EU country and have right to vote in the municipal elections. According to him, it is an absurd that foreign citizens can vote while Latvian non-citizens who live here and pay taxes still do not have voting rights.

 According to Vesti Segodnya, the nationalists’ union All for Latvia!-FF/LNIM repeatedly prepared that draft law on transition of education in all municipal kindergartens into Latvian language only. This time, the nationalists proposed to start the reform with 1 September 2015. As reported, the Saeima recently refused the identical proposal of the nationalists with the only difference that the reform was planned to begin on 1 September 2014.

• Latvijas Avize prints an interview with Jewish Rabbi Yosef Mendelevich

Latvijas Avize prints an interview with Jewish Rabbi Yosef Mendelevich who was born in Latvia and during the Soviet times was imprisoned in forced labour camp for resistance to russification of Jews and later expelled from the Soviet Union. Commenting the current language situation in Latvia, Mr Mendelevich believes that the state language proficiency by young non-Latvians improved sufficiently comparing to the Soviet years when the young generation who arrived to Latvia mostly as a labour force spoke no Latvian at all. Mr Mendelevich believes that in order to learn the language for non-Latvians it is very important to read Latvian literature, newspapers, to listen programmes in Latvian language. Yosef Mendelevich considers that the people who arrived to Latvia during USSR should understand that they should respect the nation (ethnic Latvians) to whose state they have arrived, to accept their laws and not to enforce their culture. 

• Vesti Segodnya reports about a scandal around possible usage in Riga schools of books issued in Russia
• Saeima supported in the final reading ban of usage of the USSR and Nazi symbolic at the public events
• Representatives of the Congress of Non-Citizens met with three members of the European Parliament

Vesti Segodnya reports about a scandal around possible usage of books in Riga schools issued in Russia. The deputy of the Riga City Council Janis Martins Skuja found that one of the Russian language schools uses a book on political science issued in Russia and complained about it to the Security Police and the Ministry of Education and Science. Mr Skuja claimed that the book is biased and asked to check whether the schools really use such books. The director of the school where the book was found in an interview to the newspaper explained that the book was never used in the study process and it was stored in her personal library.

Yesterday, the Saeima supported in the final reading the amendments to the Law "On the Security of Public Entertainment and Festive Events” forbidding usage of the USSR and Nazi symbolic. The amendments ban usage of Soviet and Nazi flags, emblems, and anthems, Nazi swastika, signs of the Waffen SS legion and Soviet symbols including the hammer and sickle together with five-pointed star. Usage of these symbols will not be prohibited if the aim of the usage is not connected with glorification of totalitarian regimes or justification of crimes committed by these regimes. Latvijas Avize notes that the MPs excluded from the amendments usage of uniforms explaining it by the fact that there were too many kinds of uniforms.

Vesti Segodnya reports that representatives of the Congress of Non-Citizens met with three members of the European Parliament including MEP from Latvia Tatjana Zdanoka informing them about the problem of large scale non-citizenship in Latvia and establishment of the Parliament of Unrepresented.

 

• Vesti Segodnya: 67-year-old woman, descendant of Latvian citizens cannot receive permanent residence permit in Latvia
• Latvijas Avize interviews two Russian entrepreneurs who moved for residence to Latvia

 Vesti Segodnya reports about a case of a 67-year-old woman, descendant of Latvian citizens, who returned to Latvia for residence from Ukraine, but cannot receive permanent residence permit. According to her story, her parents were old-believers and citizens of Latvia but she moved to Ukraine during Soviet era. In 2008, she returned to Latvia where her daughter (also a citizen of Latvia) resides and received temporary residence permit. After five years she applied for permanent residence permit, however, the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (OCMA) refused to grant the permit arguing that the woman is not able to pass the state language test and ordered her to leave the country. Despite the fact, that the woman provided three medical references which certify that her state of health does not allow her to take the full language test, the OCMA officials did not change the decision. But on 13 June, the OCMA suspended its decision in order to collect more information about the case.

Latvijas Avize interviews two Russian entrepreneurs who moved for residence to Latvia. The entrepreneurs received the residence permits in Latvia because they bought an expensive housing and established some businesses in Riga. The entrepreneurs explain the reasons why they choose Latvia by the fact the it is a member of the European Union, it is possible to communicate in Russian here, the distance between Riga and Moscow is relatively small, and also because both of them like the way of living in this country. According to the data of the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs, 6,249 foreigners received temporary residence permits in Latvia from 2010 up to this day.