Estonia: Amnesty International criticizes Estonia's language laws

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Amnesty Int'l: Scrap the Language Inspectorate

Recently, Amnesty International, an international human rights watchdog,
took an interest in Estonia, mainly via a scathing report released at the
end of 2006 that criticized Estonia's language laws. Today, Amnesty took
aim again at Estonia's language laws, sending Prime Minister Andrus Ansip
a letter deploring the recent strengthening of the language inspectorate's
ability to penalize Estonian residents that fail to meet language
requirements.

Amnesty International urges the Estonian government to re-consider the
latest amendments to the Law on Language and consider more constructive
approaches to linguistic integration, such as free or fully reimbursable
Estonian language classes for all, rather than the repressive, punitive,
and ultimately alienating measures used by the Language Inspectorate.
There are some flipsides to Amnesty International's argument that the
government should not interfere at the level it does via the language
inspectorate. For example, if I, as a person capable of conversing in
Estonian, am unable to receive service from a company in Estonian, the
language of the majority of the population, then haven't I been denied
some fundamental right? In some cases, you have the option of choosing
another service -- going to a different grocery, for example. But in other
cases, say taking public transport, there really are no other options for
an Estonian speaker. If I ask the bus driver something, and I cannot get a
reply in Estonian, what do I do? Walk?

But still, I don't think this is the job of the state. This is the job of
the individual employers. It's up to consumers to complain to employers
about poor service, such as the inability to converse in the majority
language in basic service situations. Also, can anyone point out how the
language inspectorate is worthy of its funding? Scrapping the language
inspectorate in favor of more funding for education in Estonian might
actually be a good idea. Because of all of Estonia's language laws, this
is really the only one that international organizations like Amnesty
International can take issue with without opening up a whole can of worms.

For example, is Estonian unilingual language policy so controversial when
weighed against language policy in France, where public schools in
Breton-speaking regions are denied funding for teaching in Breton? Like
Estonia, France's constitution states that the "language of France is
French." Can Estonian language tests for citizenship really be contested
by Amnesty when Finland has the same provision for acquiring citizenship -
that the applicants know Finnish or Swedish? Germany requires adequate
knowledge of German language as well. It's the norm.

Amnesty knows that it cannot criticize Estonian language policy outside
the language inspectorate because if it did, it would have to open up
investigations on many states in Europe. But it has made a point of
rallying against the language inspectorate because it, in all honesty,
must show some return on its investment in monitoring Estonia. As much as
its determinations can be questioned, I have to wonder if the language
inspectorate is really worth it.

http://palun.blogspot.com/2007/02/amnesty-intl-scrap-language.html

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