He said this in his address to the 61st session of the UN Human Rights Commission.
He recalled the non-citizenship status of Russian speaking residents in Latvia and Estonia. This group of people has seen its rights violated in the economic, social and cultural spheres as well as civil and political areas."
"Moreover, Russian speaking residents of Latvia, both citizens and non-citizens, have no longer the opportunity to study in Russian, which affects the quality of their education as a whole. Such imposed linguistic and cultural assimilation and social isolation is a violation of human rights standards," he said.
The diplomat added that the situation with social and cultural rights of Russian speaking residents in other former Soviet republics needed consideration too."
"Unfortunately, there are incidents of violating the rights to education, the use of native language, discrimination in employment and other violations. It does not help develop tolerance and encourage cultural variety in these multicultural societies," said Leonid Skotnikov.
