October 4, 2003Content - "Education reform 2004": schoolchildren appeal to PACE - Recommendations by PACE: FCNM will be ratified? - "A little bit" of xenophobia in Latvia's EU accession campaign - Vandalism act on Jewish cemetery - The Cabinet approves draft state budget: minority-related allocations - Minority names' spelling: new regulations, old rules? - The Cabinet adopts legal acts affecting minorities - Representatives of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly visit Latvia - Latvian-language and Russian-language press: divided they stand - Latvian Centre for Human Rights and Ethnic Studies receives the Max van der Stoel Award "Education reform 2004": schoolchildren appeal to PACE A group of 25 Russian-speaking Latvian schoolchildren, who had won the competition of caricatures against the "education reform 2004", visited Strasbourg last week. The visit was organised by the Headquarter for the support of the Russian-language schools. During the visit the schoolchildren visited the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights, received information about monitoring mechanism of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, met diplomats from Russia, Denmark and Switzerland. Participants also held a picket near the building of the Parliamentary Assembly to express their concerns about the reform. During the meeting with the children, the President of PACE Peter Schieder said that activities of the schoolchildren "fully comply not only with the letter of the European laws, but also with the spirit of the European freedom and democracy� ("Telegraf" ("The Telegraph"), September 30). This statement was seconded by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe Walter Schwimmer, who mentioned that Latvia should meet all the requirements of the Council of Europe in the field of minority protection ("Vesti Segodnya" ("The News Today"), October 1). In the meantime, the EU Commissioner on Enlargement G�nter Verheugen pointed out in his response letter to MPACE from Russia Dmitry Rogozin that the education reform scheduled for 2004 in Latvia is in full conformity with the political criteria of the EU membership ("Diena" ("The Day"), October 2). The NGO LASHOR (Association for Support of Russian-language Schools in Latvia) has submitted more than 106,000 signatures collected during the protest actions against the reform. Minister for Education and Science Karlis Sadurskis pointed out that he will study the documents carefully, but will not be able to consider them official, as "the signatures are not certified by notaries". He also told that organisers of the action should collect signatures of citizens of Latvia in order to hold a referendum concerning the issue (according to the Constitution, signatures of 1/10 of all voters are necessary to start the procedure) ("Chas" ("The Hour"), September 25). It should be mentioned that only 24.6% of the citizens belong to national minorities; and only 45.8% of persons belonging to minorities have the right to vote, as other are either non-citizens or citizens of foreign states (see data at the website of the Naturalization Board). In our view, it is extremely dangerous to decide sensitive issues related to minority rights by formal vote, as in this case clear violation of the principle of effective participation of minorities - a core of modern approach to minority rights - will be inevitable. Recommendations by PACE: FCNM will be ratified? The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted Recommendation 1623(2003) "Rights of national minorities" . The recommendation was adopted after presentation of the report prepared by MPACE from Latvia Boris Tsilevich (Doc. 9862). PACE, inter alia, called on member states who have signed but have not ratified the convention (including Latvia) "to swiftly ratify, without reservations/declarations, the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities", as well as "to pay particular attention to the free use of national minorities' languages in areas where they live in substantial numbers" and "to ensure parliamentary representation of minorities". During his press-conference in Riga Mr Tsilevich mentioned that the persistent refusal to ratify FCNM could result in re-opening monitoring by the Council of Europe in respect of Latvia closed in January 2001 (see Minority issues in Latvia, No. 24,) ("Telegraf" ("The Telegraph"), October 3). Commenting the recommendation to ratify FCNM, Minister for Special Task in the Field of Integration Affairs Nils Muiznieks mentioned that he is going to start discussions about possible ratification, but ratification itself is a task for the Saeima (Parliament). The Minister also touched upon issues mentioned in the last Concluding Observations on Latvia by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (see Minority issues in Latvia, No. 72). In his opinion, the recommendation to promote naturalisation and recommendations to grant voting rights at local elections for non-citizens and to reduce the list of occupations restricted to citizens are contradictory (the TV programme "Musu cilveks" ("Our Man"), October 1). Our commentary When the position of the Minister for Special Task in the Field of Integration Affairs had been created, we expressed our concern that the position could become the one for "external use" � the government needed a professional advocate of its ethnic policy. We believed that Mr Muiznieks was one, who really could defend not very popular steps in order to promote integration. Now it seems that he is ready to consider integration as a "zero-sum game": if the rights of non-citizens are broader, the naturalisation rate will become lower. In our view, such approach is very dangerous, as it could lead to total refusal to use positive measures in ethnic policy. "A little bit" of xenophobia in Latvia's EU accession campaign On September 20 the citizens of Latvia supported joining the European Union. It means that on May 1, 2004 Latvia will become a full-fledged EU member state. A week before the referendum the Latvian�language newspaper "Diena" ("The Day", September 13) published an article by Aigars Kimenis concerning some aspects of Latvia's accession to the EU. Three arguments in favor of the accession were presented in the publication. First of all, the author points out, the broadly used argument about immigrants flowing from Asia and Africa is not adequate for economic reasons. According to Mr Kimenis, refugees would rather choose countries with well-developed social systems like France or Germany. In turn, those who live in Latvia and do not speak Latvian or "are not loyal towards the state" will move to economically better-developed countries of the EU. Therefore, to the author's mind, the position of ethnic Latvians in Latvia would improve rather than weaken after Latvia's joining the EU. Second, worries about the Latvian language have no ground, for it will become one of the official languages of the EU. All the issues concerning it are and will remain within the remit of Latvia's internal policy. There will be no pressure from Brussels, for the EU has no say in such questions. After Latvia joins the EU, the government would not have to listen to international experts. As an example, Mr Kimenis mentions the debates upon ratification of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, pointing out that France decided not to sign or ratify this document. The author stresses, that Latvian, as a language, would rather be endangered if Latvia does not join the EU, because the pressure from the Russian minority, demanding education in Russian and the status of the second state language for Russian, will increase. Third, Latvia will get stronger position in relations with Russia. Russia understands that it could never join the EU and will try to bargain better conditions for trade. Threatening with a veto on this kind of treaties in the EU institutions, Latvia can persuade Russia to solve the question of the border between these two countries, to give up its influence in internal affairs of Latvia and to stop the economic blackmail. Our commentary We find the words chosen by the ruling elite and by the PR companies to convince citizens of the EU necessity very unfortunate and symptomatic. The article of Mr Kimenis is just an illustration of xenophobic and nationalistic rhetoric used as a mean of persuasion of EU benefits. Two pecularities can be mentioned as regards the EU campaigning experience in Latvia (which is also true for Estonia). The first impression is that the main target group of the campaign the most nationalistically-minded and xenophobic part of ethnic Latvians. Thus, the main arguments were that never again Latvia will undertake any new obligations as regards human rights and protection of minorities, as well that minorities will stop harming the Latvian state trying to defend their interests. Besides, the politicians spent a lot of time and resources explaining why immigrants would rather choose another country and Latvia will stay if not ethnically pure than at least racially homogeneous. The Russian-speaking minority was not addressed at all. The second peculiarity is that during the campaign the argument of "going away from the Russian threat" was used very broadly. Maps where all the countries eastward from Latvia (including Belarus, Ukraine, Russia and all the other CIS Republics) were red while Western countries were blue, radio spots where Latvians answering the questions about the EU benefits told about the permanent threat coming from the East and numerous other examples can be mentioned. The main conclusion that can be drawn from the campaign is that when important decisions are to be made, the political elite addresses only the Latvian-language part of the society. Besides, it perceives this part as being very exclusionist and narrow-minded. Xenophobic arguments do contribute to promotion of xenophobia within the society. Yet it is only regrettable, that this is considered to be the only legitimate motivation of joining the EU. We believe that the pro-EU campaign in Latvia was the main reason, why regions inhabited predominantly by Russian-speakers were much more "eurosceptical" than others (see article by Janis Ikstens at Latvian public politics portal). Vandalism act on Jewish cemetery Riga New Jewish cemetery became the target of vandalism by five youngsters in the night on September 13. About forty tombs were painted with swastikas and insulting anti-Semitic slogans in Latvian, Russian and German. Accidentally, the demolition took place prior to both visit of the speaker of Israeli Knesset and Latvia's EU referendum, which made some observers think of it as a provocation. However, the police authorities believe that it was just a hooliganism. The act of vandalism was condemned by Latvian establishment. Latvian police was unusually quick in finding criminals after Latvia's Jewish community issued a statement recognizing certain problems in the state institutions, when tackling anti-Semitic criminal acts. Latvian Jewish community had connected event to both referendum, visit of Israeli speaker and conference "Jews in Changing World" ("Telegraf" ("The Telegraph"), September 15). Commenting on the act, columnist Maris Antonevics from "Lauku Avize" ("The Rural Newspaper") noted, that not only Jewish cemeteries are vandalized, mentioning three cases of Christian cemeteries vandalized since 2000. He notes, that it is rather hard to find criminals in such cases and notices, that none of them had made Latvian government to act. However, Latvia had always condemned anti- Semitic crimes. "It is very unpleasant to write in light of this situation, that representatives of Israel had just acted contrary: had supported criminal act � assassination of the Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat - in public", Mr Antonevics states ("Lauku Avize" ("The Rural Newspaper"), September 16). Speaker of the Israeli Knesset Reuven Rivlin during his visit to Latvia participated in the conference "Jews in Changing World", as well as held a speech in the Saeima (Parliament). During his speech he, inter alia, reminded about the Holocaust and mentioned that activities of former soldiers of the Waffen SS legion should not be supported. Some right-wing Latvian MPs were shocked that Mr Rivlin had refused to attend the Occupation Museum and insisted that the Protocol Unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should not make such a "mistake" in future. Some days later the memorial to soldiers of the Latvian Waffen SS legion was opened in the village of Lestene. Some members of the government, MPs and leadership of the National Armed Forces attended the event. It was also live broadcasted by the public television. Our commentary Mr Antonevics undoubtedly has the right to criticize Israeli government for its policy in Palestine, still his concluding thought seems to be clearly anti-Zionist and contradicts his condemnation of the act of vandalism. Apparently, in the atmosphere of widespread xenophobia among the residents of Latvia belonging to any community, reluctance of the state to investigate incidents of hate-speech is perceived as not worth considering. However, it should be kept in mind that although tolerance is not an essential prerequisite for democracy, but intolerance can be the gravedigger of democracy. The Cabinet approves the state budget: minority-related allocations The Cabinet of Ministers approved the draft state budget for year 2004 on September 29, but the Saeima passed the draft to committees on October 2. As well as for this year (see Minority issues in Latvia, No. 63), hereinafter we analyse items of the budget related to language and minority issues (for detailed information in Latvian download from the Cabinet of Ministers website). Almost all allocations (not only in this field) are reduced for economy reasons. The President's Commission on the State Language will receive LVL 44,844 (approx. EUR 69,200) instead of LVL 47,900 in 2003 (expenses for conferences are reduced). The National Programme for Latvian Language Training will receive LVL 819,433 (approx. EUR 1,264,560), where LVL 391,685 are allocated from the budget income, but LVL 427,748 are received within the framework of the PHARE programme. In 2003 the National Programme received LVL 418,700 from the state budget and LVL 693,900 from PHARE. It should be mentioned that in 2004 the Programme will not have its own income, foreign help will be reduced, as well as LVL 27,000 will be used for education of the Latvian diaspora in Russia. The Ministry of Education and Science will receive LVL 167,629 (approx. EUR 258,690) for development of the state language (compare to LVL 157,900 in 2003). LVL 97,629 are allocated for activities of the State Language Agency, remaining LVL 70,000 are allocated for 14 different language projects. The Association of Ethnic Cultural Associations will receive traditional grant of LVL 10,000 (approx. EUR 15,430) from the budget of the Ministry of Culture (instead of the Secretariat of the Minister for Special Task in the Field of Integration Affairs). The State Language Centre (the main institution responsible for control in the field of usage of the state language) will receive LVL 90,112 (approx. EUR 139,060), including LVL 4,400 as own income. In 2003 the institution received LVL 102,200. The Naturalisation Board will receive LVL 677,821 (approx. EUR 1,046,020) instead of LVL 752,200 in 2003. The support for the Latvian language courses free of charge for naturalisation applicants (LVL 50,000) will not be received; however, the Board will receive additional LVL 20,000 for regional branches. The Secretariat of the Minister for Special Task in the Field of Integration Affairs will receive LVL 498,057 (approx. EUR 768,610) instead of LVL 1,331,800 in 2003. The allocation is reduced, as the grant for the Association of Ethnic Cultural Associations of LVL 10,000 will be paid by the Ministry of Culture; other grants for ethnic cultural NGOs are reduced for economy reasons; foreign help within the framework of the PHARE program is reduced (LVL 159,600 instead of LVL 1,039,500 in 2003). The Society Integration Foundation will receive LVL 2,450,333 (approx. EUR 3,781,380) instead of LVL 1,623,800. This sum includes LVL 1,553,952 allocated by foreign donors within the framework of the PHARE program. Minority names' spelling: new regulations, old rules? The Ministry of Justice suggested new draft Regulations on personal names' spelling. The draft is to be adopted by the Cabinet. According to the Law on IDs, personal names and surnames must be written in documents according to the grammar of the Latvian language. The original form of the name of a person of minority origin in Latin transliteration can be written on some other page of the passport (see Minority issues in Latvia, No. 51). The necessity to adopt new Regulations is caused by judgment of the Constitutional Court in the case Mentzen v. the Saeima (Parliament) and the Cabinet of Ministers (see Minority issues in Latvia, No. 41, the full text of the judgment in English available on MINELRES). The Constitutional Court ruled that the practice of "Latvianization" of personal names and surnames is in compliance with the Constitution. In the meantime, the Court recognised the so-called "equalisation" unconstitutional, if a person does not wish it. The legislation in force provided that "equalisation" (changing the personal name according to modern grammar of the Latvian language) can be used even if the personal name is already "Latvianized" and written in the passport. In fact, the Court pointed out that the personal name can be "Latvianized" only once. The draft does not review linguistic norms � still Latvian-language endings are to be annexed to minority names, but some consonants cannot be dubbed. The draft Regulations, as well as the judgment, provide that "equalisation" can be used repeatedly, but only with the consent of the concerned person. In the meantime, the Mentzen case, as well as other similar case Kuharec v. Latvia, is registered in the European Court of Human Rights. The opinion of the European Court will be decisive for further developments in this field. The Cabinet adopts legal acts affecting minorities On September 23, the Cabinet of Ministers endorsed the draft Law on Stateless Persons. The Law is to be adopted by the Saeima (Parliament) in order to come into force. The main difference between the draft and the Law currently in force is that the latter stipulates criteria of legal residence on the territory of Latvia for persons wishing to obtain a status of stateless persons. This criteria is not maintained in the draft � a person may receive the status, if no state recognises him/her as its citizen or guarantees its citizenship. The stateless person is entitled to receive a travel document in Latvia ("Vesti Segodnya" ("The News Today"), September 16). The Cabinet also adopted amendments to the Regulations on naturalisation fee (see Minority issues in Latvia, No. 71) on September 16. The state fee is reduced for pensioners, disabled persons of the 2nd and 3rd category, schoolchildren and full-time students from previous LVL 10 (approx. EUR 15.4) to LVL 3 (approx. EUR 4.6) ("Chas" ("The Hour"), September 17). Representatives of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly visit Latvia Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of NATO visited Latvia to investigate situation concerning protection of ethnic minorities. The visit was initiated after the report presented to NATO PA by vice-president of the Russia's State Duma Lyubov Sliska in May 2003. Head of the Naturalisation Board Eizenija Aldermane, who was invited for consultations to the parliamentary committee on education, science and culture, stated that Sliska's report is political in nature, containing some advice that are already implemented - for example, information campaigns for non-citizens and assistance in learning Latvian. Chair of the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs Inese Vaidere (nationalistic ruling party "For Fatherland and Freedom"/LNNK) saw no important arguments in Sliska's report and connected it with forthcoming Duma elections. She said that was pleased by interest of foreign parliamentarians in Latvia, while mentioning, that all international institutions had evaluated Latvia's situation as having no reason for concern. Representatives of NATO PA met Minister for Education Karlis Sadurskis, Minister for Special Task in the Field of Integration Affairs Nils Muiznieks and other governmental organisations, as well as minority schools in Riga. They will prepare a report on the visit, but it will not be considered officially ("Lauku Avize" ("The Rural Newspaper"), September 24). In the meantime, some Russian-language media claimed that the MATO PA delegation, contrary to previous common practice, was not offered a chance to meet minority or human rights NGOs. Latvian-language and Russian-language press: divided they stand The public policy portal www.politika.lv has published an article written by Sergey Kruk named "Small ornery nation and big ornery minority"). The author tries to find out whether the content of the Russian-language press allows to draw conclusions about the structure of the non-Latvian community. As Mr Kruk points out, the results of the referendum, showing the low level of eurooptimism among non-Latvians, revitalized discussions about negative influence of the Russian-language press upon public opinion. Yet, the author does not agree with this argument. Dr Kruk also disclaims the argument that the press shapes public opinion and not vice versa. To prove it, the author points to the failure of the attempts to create an independent discussion forum that would not repeat the Russian-language newspaper discourse. The author stresses that the non-Latvian press as well as non- Latvian part of society itself, is not homogeneous. Yet, the Latvian- language press does not comprehend this diversity, emphasising the issue of ethnic identity. "A Russian is supposed to master balalaika, because ethnic identity is considered to be the basis of social identification. Even naturalised, he becomes a "new citizen", different by definition and still amateurish. Yet, Russians do not have any specific interests that would promote their social solidarity... Ethnic origin becomes an instrument for manipulation. This is to say, that if their interests [interests of non-Latvians � ed.] contradict the interests of the ruling elite, than the opinion holder is defined in ethnic terms and excluded from politics as a hostile alien", remarks Mr Kruk. Yet, he stresses, if the interests coincide, than the ethnic factor is not discussed; only misconduct of Russians remains in reminder. Relating this to the education reform issue, Dr Kruk underlines, that this problem "has already become a question of defining power and demonstrating insistence... It has nothing to do with solving the education problem". The author concludes his analysis with the statement that "while the Latvian-language press seems to serve political and economic elite, it seems that the Russian-language press has no such client. Thus, its populist orientation is an attempt to address the depoliticised auditoria as a consumer". Latvian Centre for Human Rights and Ethnic Studies receives the Max van der Stoel Award The Latvian Centre for Human Rights and Ethnic Studies has received the Max van der Stoel Award for its activities in the field of normalisation of interethnic relations. The Award was founded by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands two years ago. Now it is handed for the first time ever. We congratulate our colleagues from the Centre and its director Ilze Brands-Kehris, as well as former director Nils Muiznieks. We believe that the activities of the Centre could be a good example of a very professional work in the field of promoting human rights.
Compiled by: Tatyana Bogushevitch Yuri Dubrovsky Gennady Kotov Alyona Babitch Milada Fomina Milana Fomina Alexander Kiselyov =========================================================== Minority issues in Latvia Newsletter published by the Latvian Human Rights Committee (F.I.D.H.) Subscription/inquiries: [email protected] Back issues: http://www.minelres.lv/count/latvia.htm#MinIssuesLatvia ===========================================================