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Infringement on national minorities’ rights to get education in their mother tongues in Latvia
Doc. 10060 corrigendum 2nd edition
17 February 2004
Written Declaration No 349
This written declaration commits only the members who have signed it
On January 23, 2004 the Saeima of the Republic of Latvia adopted in the second reading amendments to the current Law on Education, the actual goal of which lies in the complete curtailing of education in the languages of national minorities amounting to 40 per cent of the country’s population. The final adoption of the Law is planned to take place in coming weeks.
Instead of harmonising the national legislation with the requirements of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, Latvian parliamentarians followed the track of denying national minorities the right to get education in their mother tongues, thus aggravating the discrimination of this population group. Moreover, they have completely ignored the recommendations of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the Council of the Baltic Sea States.
This situation has once again demonstrated with utmost clarity that the Latvian law-making pertaining to national minorities contradicts the practice common for democratic countries, in which decisions of social significance are elaborated through the dialogue with the part of society whose interests are directly affected by them. The new law is likely to have set the most flagrant precedent of violation of national minorities’ rights in the sphere of education in the CE area and pressure aimed at forcing persons belonging to national minorities to abandon their ethnic identity.
The Council of Europe and its Parliamentary Assembly cannot stay indifferent to the violation of the CE standards in human rights protection. There is an apparent need to resume monitoring of Latvia’s honouring its obligations and commitments to the Council of Europe. Latvia should reconsider its policy in the area of national minorities, abandon the discriminatory legislation, ratify the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and strictly comply with its provisions.
Signed: [1]
Rogozin, Russia, EDG
Fedorov, Russia, EDG
Geghamyan, Armenia, NR
Gostev, Russia, UEL
Korobeynikov, Russia, SOC
Kulikov, Russia, SOC
Margelov, Russia, EDG
Naghdalyan, Armenia, NR
Oliynyk, Ukraine, UEL
Petrov, Russia, EDG
Provkin, Russia, EDG
Rybak, Ukraine, EDG
Seyidov, Azerbaijan, EDG
Sharandin, Russia, EDG
Slutsky, Russia, SOC
Symonenko, Ukraine, UEL
Tulaev, Russia, EDG
Umakhanov, Russia, EDG
Zavgayev, Russia, EDG
Ziuganov, Russia, UEL
Kovalev, Russia, EDG
__________________________
Total = 21
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SOC |
Socialist Group |