[lg policy] Wave of protests over government ’s discriminatory language policy rises in Ukraine

[Harold Schiffman]

Wave of protests over government’s discriminatory language policy
rises in Ukraine

A preemptive protest against the law factually giving Russian the
status of the other state language has forced the initiators of the
draft law to put off its approval by Rada. Protesters say they will
not budge, DeutscheWelle reports Oct. 4.  Protests titled “Get down to
business, stop kicking around language” were held in Kyiv, Lviv,
Kharkiv and Chernihiv. They were organized by NGOs “Freedom Zone,”
Rebuff” and “New Citizen.” In Kyiv, several hundreds of activists,
artists and residents came to VR carrying locked cages with Ukrainian
books and discs.

They demanded Rada lawmakers to strike the language bill off the
agenda. The speakers at the rally stressed the bill has nothing to do
with protecting disappearing ethnic minorities languages, as the
European Charter on Regional and Minority Languages envisages. Russian
is not a disappearing language. Addressing the rally, head of VR
committee on the freedom of expression Andry Shevchenko said the
ruling coalition was forced to postpone for 2 weeks the bill
consideration. He called this a “very small victory in the long and
grave war.”

Later in the day, Regions whip Oleksandr Yefremov confirmed that the
bill won’t be addressed by Rada until after the Oct. 31 local
elections, stressing that afterwards the Regions will insist on
approving the bill. Meanwhile, some Regions lawmakers expressed doubts
that the coalition will be able to muster enough votes for the bill
approval. Meanwhile, the organizers of protests have vowed to act more
resolutely if lawmakers do not back out – up to blocking the Euro-2012
football finals to be hosted by Ukraine.

http://zik.com.ua/en/news/2010/10/05/248380

-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner
or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents.
Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal,
and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message.
 A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well.  (H. Schiffman,
Moderator)

For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to
https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/
listinfo/lgpolicy-list
*******************************************

_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list