• July 17, 2014
  • 394

The Act of defense or discrimination against minorities?

After the constant plotting and receipt from the agenda a draft law on national minorities at the Thursday meeting of the deputies of the Sejm approved the project, so that together with the amendments, made by Valentinas Stundys.

Like on Tuesday approved two mutually exclusive projects with the spelling of the names non-Lithuanian in the documents of identity, which at the same time prohibit and allow the original record of the names of the non-Lithuanian, so today has been approved the draft law on national minorities in the Conservatives led by v. Stundys, which clearly limit the rights of national minorities, which for 2010 is almost 20 years of independent Lithuania-national minorities could handle.

Some observers comment on approved today act in such a way that it would be not the Act on the protection of the rights of national minorities, but the act on the discrimination of national minorities.

The Social Democrats together with the Conservatives showed they are very distant from the values of a United Europe in diversity, tolerance and European standards.

The only positive theme is that they finished the second stage of the adoption of the law on national minorities. From well informed sources we have learned that at the third stage of the adoption of this legislative act electoral action of Poles in Lithuania report fixes that will comply with European standards. Therefore, there is still a chance that the final bill will be focused on the defense of the rights of national minorities, and not on their discrimination.

Translated by Ewelina Filonik within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.

Related post

He was a Jarosław for barely a year. The court took away the letter ‘Ł’ from…

Jarosław Wołkonowski sought the right to the original spelling of his name since 1992. The District…

The referendum on dual citizenship will take place in May.

On May 12th this year, a mandatory referendum on dual citizenship will take place in Lithuania.…

VLKK: legalisation of female surnames with an ‘-a’ ending would have a negative impact on the…

Legalising the spelling of female surnames with the ending ‘-a’ would have a negative impact on…