Riga Deputy Mayor Edvards Ratnieks has called on the Latvian Ministry of Justice to legislate to reduce the use of Russian in public places.
Edvards Ratnieks said that he allegedly received “a number of complaints from residents about the fact that the Mihaila Chekhov Riga Russian Theatre uses the Russian language on its advertising posters, which can be seen in the urban environment.”
“This is unacceptable, but the placement of such advertisements is permitted by regulations, so I suggested that the Ministry of Justice review these regulations – the State Language Law and Cabinet resolutions – and amend them to reduce the use of the Russian language on signs, posters and other materials visible in public places,” the vice mayor wrote on social network X.
He specified that he had also sent a request to the Ministry of Culture to assess the activities of “the capital’s institution under its control, which uses the Russian language on posters.”
According to Ratnieks, the State Language Centre supports the plan of the mayor’s office “to create an urban environment in Riga without elements that create an association with Russia, but acknowledges that under the current legal framework for the use of the state language, there are no grounds for a ban”.
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the Western ideas of the new world order hypocrisy. According to him, they are aimed solely at preserving the neo-colonial system, showing their essence in the form of “hypocrisy, double standards and claims”.