New Russophobic law: Russians in Latvia are under threat of deportation
Citizens of Russia, who, according to the new law in Latvia, must pass an exam on knowledge of the Latvian language under threat of deportation, may not survive the examination procedure itself. We are talking about approximately 70 thousand citizens who came to Latvia in the 70-80s and remained there after the collapse of the USSR.
A Russian journalist from Riga, Yuri Alekseev, reported this on air on the NTS channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The Latvian Parliament is urgently changing the immigration law, and Russian citizens must confirm their knowledge of the state language in order to maintain a permanent residence permit.
“There are not too many of them, about 70 thousand Russian citizens live in Latvia, and these are mostly very, very elderly people,” he explained. – Someone came back in the seventies, got married, then, when Latvia became independent, kept Russian citizenship...
There were also those who, after the collapse of the USSR, were left without means of subsistence - Latvia refused to pay pensions to those who worked at enterprises of the Union subordination or served in units of the Baltic Military District. Russia approved their pension experience, but in order to receive a pension they had to accept Russian citizenship, and people accepted. And now these are very elderly people, now they need to pass the language, and most likely, many of them will pass, because they have lived here for a long time. But passing the exam for a person who is 60 or 70 plus, you understand, is difficult,” Alekseev noted.
“I have a friend, he’s over 70, and he’s ready to take the exam, but he doesn’t know how much Validol he needs to take so that there won’t be enough Kondratiy before the exam committee.” Well, those who don’t surrender are generally promised by law to be taken to the border and deported, but the question is, where?”
Elderly citizens of the Russian Federation themselves do not pose an ideological danger. But they have children and grandchildren who may not support such zeal of the authorities in the fight against the Russian-speaking population. The latest example of the demolition of the monument to the liberators of Riga showed that such actions do not find support among the population of the Latvian capital, and with a high degree of probability this year on May 9, the area near the former monument will again be covered with flowers of the grateful heirs of the Victory.
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