Photo credit: facebook.com / rusojuz.lv
The use of the native languages of national minorities in communication with government agencies, as well as in education and culture should be guaranteed in the countries of the European Union both during normal times and during times of emergency. These words were included in the text of the press release issued by the intergroup of the European Parliament, the Russian Union of Latvia (RUL) reports on Facebook. The appeal was timed to coincide with the European Day of Languages, which is celebrated on Saturday, September 26.
Along with other MEPs, Tatyana Zhdanok, a representative of the RUL, took part in the work on the text intended for the leadership of the EU countries. The statement notes that the coronavirus pandemic has brought a number of new problems to national minorities, since it has deprived them of the opportunity to receive important information regarding the health and spread of COVID-19 in their native language.
The text cites research data, according to which at least half of the representatives of traditional national and linguistic minorities could not receive basic information in their native language. And children from these groups experienced difficulties in gaining access to education, finding themselves in a more difficult situation than their peers belonging to the linguistic majority.
Based on these data, the parliamentarians introduced a clause stating that the use of native languages in these areas should be guaranteed both during normal times and during special circumstances.
Earlier, the Russian Foreign Ministry called the situation in Latvia with Russian-speaking education outrageous. Riga was called on to provide favorable conditions for the educational process of Russian-speaking schoolchildren amid the development of coronavirus infection. In early autumn, Israel was encouraged to translate publicly significant information into Russian. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted that the situation with respect to the rights of Russian-speaking residents in Ukraine continued to deteriorate.
Russkiy Mir
