<div class="document_title">
<h1>The Russian language - a challenge for Latvian democracy</h1>
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<table style="margin-top:5px;" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td valign="top"><div class="authors"><a href="http://english.ruvr.ru/by_author/49318338/index.html">Alexandra Zakharova</a></div></td><td align="right" valign="top">
<div class="document_date" style="white-space:nowrap;">Dec 1, 2011 16:01 Moscow Time</div></td></tr></tbody></table>
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<div class="doc_text"><p class="text">Russian may become a second state
language in Latvia. Russian-speakers have collected signatures of 10% of
the country’s population in support of a nationwide referendum. It may
result in writing Russian into the Constitution as a second state
language together with Latvian.</p><p class="text">Now Russian is a
minority language in Latvia, even though almost half the population of
the republic speaks it. In recent years the authorities have been
increasingly maltreating the rights of the “minority”. The toughest
restriction is a ban to teach in Russian in schools and universities.
Apart from this, all state institutions must only speak Latvian. For
this reason, Russian-speakers decided to collect signatures in support
of a referendum on changing the current language status. 180,000
signatures have already been collected, with only 150,000 required, one
of the leaders of the movement For the Native Language Evgeny Osipov
points out.</p><p class="text">"Russian has been systematically removed
from all state spheres for 20 years. This is not fair, as 40% of the
population speak Russian. Actually, Russian is better understood in
Latvia than Latvian. A large part of the population is Russian-speaking
and it is stupid that the Russian language has no status. In Finland
where only 6% of the population are Swedish, Swedish is the second state
language. It is enough to win at the stage of collecting signatures to
raise the Russian language issue in European organizations. This is
legal proof that there are many people in Latvia who want to obtain an
official status for the Russian language.”</p><p class="text">Collecting
the signatures was accompanied by continuous opposition of the
authorities. They openly criticized the initiative, alleging that
signature collection was a pointless waste of state money. However,
practice showed that people were not indifferent. During the last days
of signature collection people queued to support the referendum. The
next stage is submitting the draft amendment to the Constitution to
Latvian President Andris Berzins who must turn it over to the parliament
for debate. If it is voted down there, a referendum will be organized.
It will be necessary to win 50% of votes, which is 800,000 people.</p><p class="text">Speaking
frankly, there is little hope for success because a considerable part
of Russian-speakers has no citizenship and no right to vote.
Nevertheless, the referendum will show once again, and especially to EU
organizations, that the problem of national minorities in Latvia is
extremely acute, said the head of the Centre of Legal Assistance to
Fellow-Countrymen Mikhail Yoffe in his interview for The Voice of
Russia.</p><p class="text">“This is a protest against the official
policy towards the Russian-speaking population of that country. It is
carried out by the part of the population which has grown tired of the
discriminative policy. They want change. Unfortunately, the Seim where
the majority of MPs are nationalist-minded politicians will not accept
the amendment. The issue will have to be submitted to a referendum in
which much more votes are required, about 700,000-800,000. This high
figure is unachievable in today’s Latvia.”</p><p class="text">Irrespective
of the results, carrying out a referendum will be a serious challenge
to the world public. Democracy does exist in Latvia and the voices of
those 40% of the population whose rights are crushed by the authorities
will be heard. Even if the Russian language does not get an official
status people will be able to hope for the easing of the language
policy, which means that there is a real chance to speak Russian in
Latvia without violating the law.</p><p class="text"><a href="http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/12/01/61314108.html">http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/12/01/61314108.html</a><br></p><p class="text"><br></p></div><br><br>-- <br>**************************************<br>
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