Lavrov slams Latvia, Estonia on human rights

GENEVA - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has castigated Estonia and Latvia for the high number of stateless people in the countries, saying the situation is "shameful".

“The task of ensuring the human rights of national minorities demands greater attention, especially in the context of such shameful phenomenon as the chronic problem of statelessness in Latvia and Estonia," Lavrov said in an address to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva this weekend.

"It is necessary to achieve full implementation of the relevant recommendations of the Council of Europe, OSCE and the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination,” he said.

About 15% of the Latvian population - some 350,000 people - are non-citizens and posses "aliens passports". The vast majority of these are Russian speakers. Estonia has approximately 100,000 stateless people, which amounts to around 10% of the population.

The Latvian and Estonian foreign ministries have both responded to the criticism, highlighting programs that the countries have to help intigrate non-citizens.

"Latvian legislation and the existing regulation on the matters of national minorities fully comply with standards of the Council of Europe, the OSCE and UN, and this is a subject that belongs to Latvia’s domestic affairs... Every non-citizen in Latvia is offered an opportunity to naturalise. However, to do that or not is a choice left up to each individual,” Latvian Foreign Minister Girts Kristovskis said in a statement.