Integration and Minority Information Service: newsletter of 21 May 2009

Today news:

 Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights reviewed a case of a former Red partisan Vasilijs Kononovs

The Cabinet of Ministers decided to introduce common approach for calculations of length of service for citizens and non-citizens: the time of work of citizens or non-citizens until 31 December 1991 outside of Latvia and on military enterprises in former Soviet republics will not be included into the total length of service. Previously, this time of work was included into the total length of service of Latvian citizens only. Chas, Telegraf

According to the Naturalisation Board (NB), the number of non-citizens who register their children as Latvian citizens has noticeably decreased during the last couple of years. Only 625 children of non-citizens were recognized as citizens in 2008 as compared with 1,795 children recognized as citizens in 2004. The Head of the NB Eizenija Aldermane explains this by luck of motivation of parents and insufficient civil education in schools. The Saeima’s Human Rights Commission and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs support proposal to ease process of registration of newborn children as Latvian citizens. Chas, NRA

Vesti Segodnya reports that a group of young people torn off ribbons of St. George (used as commemoration of WWII) from a car in Jurmala and spitted the car. The owners of the car saw what is happening and managed to detain the persons before the police arrived. The police initiated a criminal process.

Yesterday, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) reviewed a case of a former Red partisan Vasilijs Kononovs against Latvia. The ruling will be announced within the next two to six months. As reported, Latvia appealed the ECHR’s ruling issued in July 2008 which was in favour of Vasilijs Kononovs and obliged Latvia to pay him EUR 30,000 as moral compensation. Vesti Segodnya, Latvijas Avize

For further information:

Latvian Centre for Human Rights