Latvian government is carrying out a language “blitzkrieg” in their country

14.04.2018, Vienna.

The Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the OSCE, Aleksandr Lukashevich spoke of a language “blitzkrieg”, that the Latvian authorities are carrying out in their country, at a meeting of the Permanent Council in Vienna.

Lukashevich urged OSCE officials responsible for ethnic minority issues to pay attention to the school education reform performed by the Latvian authorities, which is supposed to transfer all the education completely into the Latvian language. The Russian representative characterized the actions being taken by the Latvian authorities as a language “blitzkrieg” which escalates the tension between ethnic groups. He also recalled a decision made by the Federal Union of European Nationalities to oppose the discrimination against the Russian-speaking residents of Latvia which deprives them of their right to speak their native tongue at school.

A strong protest among the Russian-speaking residents of Latvia was caused by amendments to the Education Act adopted by the Latvian Saeima on March 23. The adopted amendments will transfer instruction in Latvian schools to Latvian by the 2021–2022 school year. Meanwhile, Russian-speakers make up 40% of Latvia’s total population.

Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency

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