Minority issues in Latvia, No. 13

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Minority issues in Latvia, No. 13


Minority issues in Latvia, No. 13
Prepared by the Latvian Human Rights Committee (F.I.D.H.)
March 28, 2000
 

News from the Saeima

In February the Latvian Parliament adopted a document titled "The
Strategy of Integration into the European Union". Section 2.6 of the
document on "Culture and Education" contained, among others, also a
statement that "transition to state-supported education only in the
state language will facilitate integration of the society in Latvia".
In other words, the document envisages complete elimination of the
state-supported education in minority languages. This provision runs
contrary both to the Latvian Law on Education currently in force and
to the Framework Document of the National Program "Integration of the
Society in Latvia" which's adoption by the government was lately
widely advertised (the latter envisages elimination of only
state-funded secondary education while primary education must be made
bilingual). It is worth mentioning that the draft discussed by the
parlimentary European Affairs Committee did not contain this clause,
and it is not clear who and at what stage introduced this amendment
into the document. Because of this clause, the pro-minority faction
"for Human Rights in Integrated Latvia" could not support the document
and abstained in voting.      

It should be mentioned that the English translation of the document
circulated to foreign embassies and EU representation in Latvia did
not include the provision mentioned above, and thus was misleading.
Answering the parliamentary question about this difference between the
Latvian and English texts of the document, the Minister of Foreign
Affairs Mr. Indulis Berzinsh explained that the English translation
was made and sent to foreign embassies by the EU Department of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs "by it's own initiative". English
translation corresponded to the original text in Latvian, Mr. Berzinsh
said, but "it is considered unofficial. Only text in Latvian is
considered official".


An opinion is not a crime

On December 20, 1999, "Universitates Avize" (the newspaper of the
University of Latvia) published an interview with Mr. Aivars Garda, a
director of the "Vieda" publishers, under the title "Latvia on the
frontier of centuries". In the interview, Mr. Garda said: "We are not
free from civil invaders... It is not important whether it is an
enemy's army or civil inhabitants... Every nation, state has the right
to use force against enemy, if he does not give up occupation
voluntarily... An enemy of Latvian nation is an alien who does not
accept Latvian nation's will within the territory of Latvia, considers
Latvia as a part of Russian empire, who has not learned Latvian or has
learned, but does not speak Latvian on principle, who asks the state
to finance education in foreign languages etc�" 
On February 9, 2000, Mr. Janis Jurkans, the leader of the pro-minority
faction in the Saeima, asked the Prosecutors' Office to evaluate,
whether the article did not qualify as a hate speech. In his response,
an inspector of the Constitution Defence Office (secret service)
explained that Mr. Garda had only expressed his opinion in form of
reflection on the basis of N.Rerikh's Alive Ethics and Divine Justice
doctrine, so, that was not a crime. 


Latvia's NGOs urge for ratification of the Framework Convention
 
On March 3 several Latvian NGOs, including Latvian Human Rights
Committee, held a public meeting with the members of the Saeima
(Parliament) and Riga City Council from the pro-minority coalition
"For Human Rights in Integrated Latvia". March 3, 1991, is the date of
referendum on the national independence, which was in fact the last
voting of the whole population, after that only the citizens of the
pre-war Latvia retained the right to vote. During the event a campaign
to collect signatures under an appeal to the UN, Council of Europe,
European Commission, OSCE, and CBSS began. The aim of this process is
to ask international community to recommend Latvian authorities:

- to ratify the Framework Convention for the Protection of National
Minorities signed by Latvia in May 1995;

- to ensure the possibility to officially use the languages of
national minorities in the areas of their compact residence and to
guarantee further existence of the state-supported educational system
in the languages of minorities along with effective teaching of the
Latvian language;

- to grant voting rights at municipal elections to the permanent
residents of Latvia who do not have the citizenship of Latvia but live
in Latvia 5 years or more.
 

March 16 - the memorial day of the Latvian SS-Waffen legion
 
On March 16 about 4,000 people in the centre of Riga gathered in
honour of the Latvian SS-Waffen legion's soldiers. A lot of former
legionnaires were among them. After the church service, they laid
flowers and wreathes at the Freedom Monument.

The memorial day of the Latvian SS-Waffen legion is not an official
memorial day in Latvia since February 2000 when the Saeima voted to
remove it from the official calendar. However, some MPs from the
People's party and the party "For Fatherland and Freedom" (both
parties of the ruling coalition) took part in the procession and even
asked to make a break in the Saeima's plenary session to have an
opportunity to participate (this request was not supported by the
majority of MPs).

The procession was permitted by Riga municipal authorities. Latvian
anti-fascists also wanted to hold a picket near the Freedom Monument,
but their application was declined by the City Council's officials. In
spite of this Latvian anti-fascists (including members of the Latvian
Human Rights Committee) held a picket during the time of the
procession. An exchange of opinions between participants of both
events took place, some posters of the Latvian Human Rights Committee
were torn. Representatives of the police promise to punish
administratively all the participants of the "prohibited" anti-fascist
picket.

March 16, 1944, is the date of the baptism of fire of the Latvian
SS-Waffen legion against the Red Army. Now many Latvian politicians
try to prove that Latvian legionnaires were not a part of SS and
should be considered as fighters for the independence of Latvia
against the Soviet occupation.
 

Dr. Slucis' awards
 
On March 9 the weekly "Izglitiba un kultura" (Education and Culture)
published statutes of competition announced by Dr. Slucis "For
contribution to national-patriotic education in schools". Five awards
of 1,000 lats (appr. USD 1,690) each were promised to teachers who
elaborate teaching aids about "the genocide against the Latvian nation
in the 20th century" and whose pupils participate in different
activities (including public events) and show their knowledge about
"the Latvian nation`s historical suffering, the greatest tragedy of
this century - Russian occupation and its consequence - 700,000 civil
invaders who still live in Latvia illegally". 

The reports of the contest participants were to be submitted to the
headquarters of the "Club 415" - an NGO known due to its recent
rallies aimed at "protection of democratic Austria against attacks by
the Communist EU" held under the slogans "EU=USSR+USD". Dr. Slucis is
an American Latvian widely known because of his radical nationalistic
views. While the contest is a private undertaking of Dr.Slucis, it is
worth mentioning that the weekly "Izglitiba un kultura" is considered
an organ of the Ministry and Education, and that district school
boards (municipal bodies) circulated announcements about the
competition to the schools under their supervision. Ironically,
invitations to take part in the competition were sent also to the
schools with Russian as the main language of instruction.   

The amount of awards (1,000 lats) is approximately equal to a
teacher's average yearly salary in Latvia.


Articles in Russian press of Latvia
 
Two interesting articles have been published in the Russian-language
newspaper "Vesti segodnya" ("News Today"). The first one concerns the
problem of ethnic origin in connection with employment. The State
Service of Employment in several cases mentioned in the list of
vacancies additional requirements of an employer - a worker must be of
"ethnic Latvian origin". The director of the Service admitted that
this practices were discriminatory, and said that the guilty officials
would be punished. However, the newspaper mentions, even if this
requirement is not published officially, nothing prevents an employer
from taking on mainly ethnic Latvians, because it guarantees that the
State Language Inspection will not disturb them with additional
checking.

Another publication said that the Prime Minister of Latvia Mr. Shkele
announced his readiness to accept all residents' questions sent via
e-mail and to answer them. Two journalists of the "Vesti segodnya"
sent a question in Russian to Mr. Shkele about the language policy and
housing problems. In response, they were offered to repeat these
questions written in Russian but with Latin letters, for "computers in
the office of the Prime Minister did not support Cyrillic fonts". It
is well known that all modern versions of OS (eg Windows) and text
processors contain full set of fonts, including Cyrillics, which can
be easily installed. In our view, to do this would be reasonable
particularly in a country in which Russian is a mother tongue of
almost a half of residents. 


Alexei Dimitrov
Latvian Human Rights Committee (F.I.D.H.)

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