• Nationalistic internet site posts names, surnames, addresses and personal codes of owners of cars decorated with Russian or Soviet symbols
• National Radio and Television Council will not appeal to the Prosecutor’s Office against Channel TV5 broadcast “Un-censored”
• MP Imants Kalnins: it is time to built a Mosque in Latvia
• 133,050 persons received Latvian citizenship trough naturalisation since the procedure was launched in 1995
• Russia calls Norway to facilitate observation of rights of Russian speaking residents in Latvia
• MP Jakovs Pliners: new language reform in schools will cause outflow of residents from Latvia

Newspapers report that a nationalistic internet site posts a list named “Occupants’ Car Fleet” which contains names, surnames, addresses and personal codes (identity numbers) of owners of cars decorated with Russian or Soviet symbols. As reported, last year, Latvian radicals, in the framework of the action “Recognize the Fifth Column” posted pictures of such cars on the Internet. It is not known yet who personally posted these data and how they acquired it. Chas, Vesti Segodnya, Telegraf

The National Radio and Television Council will not appeal to the Prosecutor’s Office against Channel TV5 broadcast “Un-censored” due to problems to specify violated norm of the Criminal Code. As reported, TV5 was fined by the NRTC with LVL 1000 (EUR 1422) for insult of national honour and dignity in its broadcast “Un-censored” on the Independence Day. During the broadcast, the viewers could vote to answer a question: “What was Latvia’s acquisition of independence?” One of the offered answers was “it was a fatal mistake.” Diena

The MP Imants Kalnins (FF/LNIM) who recently translated Koran into Latvian language believes that Latvia should have built a Mosque long time ago. Mr. Kalnins believes that people in Latvia know too little about Islam but it is time to built a Mosque in the country. Interpretation of Koran by Mr. Kalnins will be published soon. Chas, Vesti Segodnya, Telegraf, Diena

According to the Naturalisation Board (NB), 133,050 persons received Latvian citizenship trough naturalisation since the procedure was launched in 1995. The NB also processed 2,843 applications to relinquish Latvian citizenship and investigated 2,341 cases resulting in deprivation of citizenship. Chas

Russia called Norway to facilitate observation of rights of Russian speaking residents in Latvia. The Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov at a meeting with his Norwegian colleague Jonas Gahr Støre criticized situation of Russian speakers and large number of non-citizens in Latvia. Chas

The MP Jakovs Pliners (FHRUL) in an interview with Chas stated that he hopes that the proposal of the nationalistic party For Fatherland and Freedom/LNIM to switch all state funded school to Latvian language will not find support among Latvian residents because if such reform is implemented Latvia will loose large number of its residents. Mr. Pliners believes that quality of education in Latvia is very low and if Russian speakers have no chance to study in their language they will choose to leave to other European countries where quality of education is better. Mr. Pliners also believes that in order to raise competitiveness of Latvian higher education establishments they should be granted right to teach in Russian language at least foreign students.