Several thousand people came to France’s embassy in Latvia’s capital to participate in a rally against reform of Russian-language schools. The protesters passed by Germany’s embassy towards the European Commission’s representation, a TASS correspondent reported from the site.
“Our estimation is the rally features more than 3,000 participants. Our slogans are “This is our spring!” “This is our rally!”,” the European Parliament’s Deputy Miroslav Mitrofanov, representing the republic, and co-chair of the Latvian Russian Union, told TASS. “We have drums, as we want to be heard.”
The protesters carry posters, which read “This is not reform, this is repressions,” “Sovereign power belongs to people. We are people. We are deciding,” “Ukraine. Brexit. Catalonia. Europe, do you want another problem?” “For Native Language. For Russian schools. For our children,” “No to assimilation,” “Stop Ethnic Discrimination.”
“We want to present to authorities of the EU biggest countries – Germany and France – the simple idea: Russians in Latvia, this country’s national minority is determined to protect education in the native language,” the rally’s organizers said. “Russian schools to be!”
“Europeans do not know much about what is happening in the small countries like Latvia,” Mitrofanov said. “Brussels discusses Brexit, Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, all those inner relations, but they know little about our problems.”
“This is why we hope very much a picture of our rally will get to the European media thus preparing information ground so that we could tell Europe about our intention to defend our right for education in the native language,” he added.