28 August 2013

 

• Conference of Russian minority organisations highlighted topical problems of the community

 

Newspapers report about the conference of the "Council of non-governmental organisations of Latvia" (SOOL) and the 6-th conference of Russia's compatriots "Native Language in Education and Culture, Equal Rights for Everyone – the Way towards Liquidation of the Democracy Deficit in Latvia", held in Riga last weekend. 212 representatives of 70 NGOs, as well as 80 guests and 12 journalists participated. SOOL coordinator Viktors Guscins welcomed activities aimed at the defence of human rights, stated his opinion that Latvian state has a negative attitude towards Russian minority, limits opportunities for the language, squeezes out ethnic Russians from the labour market and pressures the community; he called for consolidation and for the liquidation of the institute of non-citizenship. According to MEP Tatjana Zdanoka, many people in Latvia believe that any protest in Latvia is fruitless because the government could not care less about the public opinion and therefore also the Russian community is no longer united; however, she believes that some rights are still available today because of the mass-scale protests in the past: the original 1999 version of the language legislation envisioned that all public meetings (such as this conference) should be held in Latvian only, and Rusian minority schools still exist today thanks to the protests. According to the Member of the Sub-committee on Rights of Minorities of the PACE Boriss Cilevics, his colleagues at the PACE could not believe that Latvia's situation was even possible and wondered why, given the restrictions on nearly half of the population, there were no victims; apparently, Latvia's residents highly valued stability and Russian community leaders were wise. Representative of Latvian Human Rights Committee Vladimirs Buzaevs highlighted Latvia's record: 70% of all persons without citizenship within the 500-million strong European Union are the non-citizens of Latvia and the list of employment prohibitions was further enlarged in 2010 to include the municipal and port police, rubbish dump employees etc. Speaker of the unofficial Parliament of Unrepresented Valerijs Komarovs highlighted that ethnic minorities represent only 5% of the state officials, while there are 37% of ethnic minorities among the population. Participants also adopted an open letter to the Prime Minister of Latvia and the Minister of Culture, calling to restore the Salaspils memorial. Vesti Segodnya, Latvijas Avize

26 August 2013

 

• Janis Iesalnieks: after the next parliamentary elections, many ethnically Latvian parties will be competing with each other to cooperate with the Concord Centre
• Doctor of Theology Guntis Kalme: "the red-brown pest has metastases" in Latvia
• Russian opposition: the USSR has already condemned the occupation and apologised

 

Latvijas Avize interviews the senior consultant to the Nationalist Union AFL!-FFF/LNIM Janis Iesalnieks. According to Mr.Iesalnieks, the most important goal of the nationalists is to restore the belief that ethnic Latvians are able to rule the state, that the power should not be given to ethnic Russians for positive changes. Mr.Iesalnieks understands ethnic Russians, who voted for the Concord Centre as a party which defends their interests. Ethnic Latvians voted for Nils Usakovs (Concord Centre) because he has more humane communication style, while the ruling parties demonstrate certain arrogance. On some issues, especially the social issues, MPs representing the Nationalists Union and the Concord Centre voted the same. However, he believes cooperation with the Concord Centre is impossible, alleging that this is "a branch office of Russia's ruling party". His pessimistic forecast is that after the next year's parliamentary elections, many ethnically Latvian parties will be competing with each other to cooperate with the Concord Centre. When asked about the request of the U.S.A. to extradite ethnic minority Latvian citizen Deniss Calovskis suspected of cyber crimes, Mr.Iesalnieks emphasises that he supports the concept of Latvia as ethnic, not civic state and that Latvia has to defend every ethnic Latvian regardless of citizenship; however, Calovskis perhaps made a crime and moreover, Calovskis on his Facebook page indicated he supports Nils Usakovs (Concord Centre). According to Mr.Iesalnieks, there is no conflict within the Nationalist Union when the "All for Latvia!" members on 15 May pay tribute to Karlis Ulmains, who organised coup'd'etat in 1934 and ruled Latvia personally until 1940. Their members are regularly conducting patriotic youth summer camps, which combine lectures and sports.

 

Latvijas Avize publishes article by Doctor of Theology Guntis Kalme about the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact signed in 1939. Mr. Kalme writes that the "consequences of the war caused by the Pact are still to be overcome" and that "the red-brown pest has metastases". Namely, Mr.Kalve points at "ethnic Russian community".

 

Latvia's Radio journalist interviewed representatives of Russian opposition parties about the recognition of occupation of Latvia. Representative of the staff of the main opposition candidate to the position of the Mayor of Moscow Aleksey Navalny stated that this issue is not important in the context of these elections. Representative of the party "Yabloko" stated that he is informed about the human rights violations in Latvia, but emphasised that "Yabloko" is not going to exploit the issue for xenophobic purposes. The head of the "Left Front" highlighted that in 1990 the USSR has already condemned the occupation and apologised; he does not understand why Russia should constantly apologise. Vesti Segodnya

• 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