Latvija in brief - 2005-04-27

  • 2005-04-27
Aleksandrs Kirsteins, an MP from the People's Party and chairman of Parliament's foreign affairs committee, called for a halt to the naturalization program for several months and an audit of recently naturalized citizens. Citizenship should only be granted to those who have integrated into society. His party did not support his proposals.

Activists from the anti-education reform organization Shtab were stopped at the Estonian border and forbidden to cross in order to attend a demonstration in Tallinn against Latvia's education reform. Latvian authorities said that the bus the activists were traveling in was not road-worthy.

The police reclassified the attack on an Indian that occurred in the Old Town at the beginning of March from racism to hooliganism. Police officials claimed it was too difficult to prove the intent of the attackers.

Foreign Minister Artis Pabriks said that the he could be the one to sign a border agreement with Russia on May 10, a day after ceremonies celebrating the 60th anniversary of the defeat of fascism in Moscow, after President Vaira Vike-Freiberga refused to sign the agreement on that date. For the first time the text of the border agreement was made public. "Latvia declares that this treaty does not concern, does not reduce and does not deprive the Latvian state and its nationals from the rights and legal claims provided for them in accordance with the Latvian-Russian peace treaty of Aug. 11, 1920 and the international law," the document reads.