- February 7, 2014
- 292
Jarosław Narkiewicz: They want us to send our children to Lithuanian schools
Jarosław Narkiewicz, the deputy chairman of Lithuanian Sejm, said in the interview for „Nasz Dziennik” that Poles who live in Lithuania want Polish government to support them.
„It’s not a problem connected with the ruling coalition but we are forced to this action by the judgement of the Supreme Administrative Court, which wasformed at the end of the previous year. I mean the fine and its large that was led to Bolesław Daszkiewicz, the chairman of local government administration in Šalčininkai region by the court. It shocked us” – the politician explained why the chairmen of AWPL asked EU institutions and the counterparts in Poland for help to solve the problem connected with breaking the minorities rights in Lithuania.
A few days before, Narkiewicz appealed to the chairmen of political parties in Poland for coming to Lithuania in order to see what the problems of minorities really looks like. The court’s judgment, who punished the chairman of administration in Šalčininkai region with very big fine, causes the request. The chairman did not remove name plates which was the reason for the punishment. The representatives of PiS arrived to Lithuania yesterday. They collected 30 000 zloty for paying the administration chairman’s fine.
They wants us to send our children to Lithuanian schools, to use Lithuanian language during our private conversations at our homes.
According to Narkiewicz, in Lithuania, there are assimilation processes. “They want us to send our children to Lithuanian schools, to use Lithuanian during private conversations at homes and not only in the offices. We, obviously oppose it” – said, the deputy chairman of Sejm RL.
AWPL politician emphasized that the situation in Lithuania is not much better than the situation in Belorussia. “In Lithuania, our beginning was different, I mean the charter which was guaranteed on the basis of the act passed in 1989, in Soviet Union. And here the juxtaposition is needed. We should check if the conditions of our development are better or worse. Lithuanian politicians wanted subjects taught in Polish to be only 30% of all subjects, while we teach students in Polish at our schools. They set an example of Latvia because they teach in Polish only few subjects and the rest in Latvian. However, Polish minorities had no rights there and now, the opportunity to teach in Polish means a positive change” – Narkiewicz explained.
According to the politician, there is only one solution. “We want to create, in coalition, many laws which aim is to change the situation. The fact is that the change is not significant, which may be changed when the new act on national minorities is passed. The coalitions and we came to a conclusion that we will refer to the act from 1989 if our new project is still an inderdepartmental arrangement. It’s a well-known act, to which the amendments were passed on 29th March 1991, when so called January Events finished and when the independence of Lithuania came” – Narkiewicz said.
Tłumaczenie by Anna Kwiatkowska w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Anna Kwiatkowska within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.
