Kiev, Ukraine. Following in the foot steps of the neocon-neo Nazi Baltic States, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has ordered that 75% of the time Ukrainian broadcast outlets must broadcast only in Ukrainian. One can only imagine the outrage if Trump tried this in the USA, but somehow Ukraine magically never counts in international discussion, because of imaginary “Russian aggression.”
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko reported on Twitter that he just signed into law a 75% quota on the use of the Ukrainian language on television.Which requires broadcasters to only use the airways in the Ukrainian language.
According to official data from the 2001 Ukrainian census, the Russian language is native for 49.6% of Ukraine’s population (about 24.3 million people). Ethnic Russians form 56% of the total Russian-speaking population, while the remaining Russian speakers are people of other ethnic backgrounds: 5,545,000 Ukrainians, 172,000 Belarusians, 86,000 Jews, 81,000 Greeks, 62,000 Bulgarians, 46,000 Moldovans, 43,000 Tatars, 43,000 Armenians, 22,000 Poles, 21,000 Germans, 15,000 Crimean Tatars. Russian has been the language of culture, business and entertainment for well over 100 years now in the Ukraine.
“I would like to thank the media representatives for their proposals on the introduction of quotas and the return of the Ukrainian language to Ukrainian media. I signed the relevant law,” the President wrote. Of course, never mind the law is in violation of UN Human Rights laws and those of the European Union that the Ukraine claims a desire to join. Even in the United States, Ukraine’s sugar daddy-this law would be illegal and never enter into effect.
According to a 2016 public opinion poll by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, the number of people using Russian language in their homes considerably exceeds the number of those who declared Russian as their native language in the census.
In this survey, Russian is used at home by 43–46% of the population of the country (in other words a similar proportion to Ukrainian) and Russian speakers make up a majority of the population in Eastern and Southern regions of Ukraine. Russian language dominates in informal communication in the capital of Ukraine, Kiev. It is also used by a sizeable linguistic minority (4-5% of the total population) in Central and Western Ukraine. Most importantly 83% of Ukrainians responding to a 2016 Gallup poll preferred to use Russian instead of Ukrainian to take the survey.
“Here the laurels belong to you. This is your initiative and your proposal, which I simply supported. People’s deputies did their job perfectly and I signed the law with great pleasure,” the press service quoted Poroshenko as saying. Not understanding or just not caring that the law is a violation of the most basic of human rights in a society. A right of communication enshrined in the US constitution, EU constitution and ironically, was guaranteed under Soviet law once upon a time.
The head of state also stressed this decision protects the Ukrainian language among other languages in Ukraine. “No one is against other languages sounding from the television screens. However, it is unacceptable that the share of the Ukrainian language on any Ukrainian channel is fifteen, twenty or twenty five percent. Thank God we managed to defend this,” he said.
That remains to be seen as an armada of world civil and human rights groups line up to bring legal action against Ukraine. Under US law, it is possible to bring class action against Ukraine for monetary damages for this unheard of violation of human rights.
It was recently reported that on May 23, the Verkhovna Rada introduced a 75% quota for Ukrainian language on television. For non-compliance with quotas, a penalty of 5% of the amount of the license fee is collected from the TV channels.
The Verkhovna Rada introduced quotas for Ukrainian songs on the radio in the summer of 2016. In the first year after the introduction of the law they should amount to at least 25% of the total time of songs played within 24 hours. Then, gradually, the quotas will be increased to 35%. For news and morning broadcasts, the quota for the Ukrainian language is 50% in the first year with a further increase to 60%.
One does not have to be a professor of history to see that a country that is forced to impose its ways upon its citizens, is not one long for this world.