Integration monitor is a daily Latvian press digest on ethnic minority and society integration issues. The Monitor reviews the biggest Latvian dailies: Diena, Latvijas Avize, Neatkariga (in Latvian language), Vesti Segodnya (in Russian language). In specific cases other information sources are used. Latvian Centre for Human Rights is not responsible for information published by the media.

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