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91. The Special Rapporteur recommends that the Government revisit the existing
requirements for naturalization with a view to facilitate the granting of citizenship to
persons of undefined nationality. In particular, the Government should facilitate the
citizenship procedures for vulnerable groups, including elders and economically
marginalized segments. This should involve the offer of free-of-charge language courses for
all non-citizens that wish to apply for citizenship, as partially foreseen in the Programme
for Integraton of Society (2008-13) The Government should also consider appropriate
measures to tackle the low level of registration as citizens of children born in Estonia after
20 August 1991 to non-citizen parents. These measures could include granting automatic
citizenship at birth, without a requirement of registration by the parents, to those children
born to non-citizen parents who do not acquire any other nationality.
92. As a matter of priority, the Special Rapporteur recommends that the language policy
in Estonia be subject to an open, democratic and inclusive debate, in close consultation
with ethnic minorities and human rights organizations, aiming at elaborating consensual
strategies that better reflect the multilingual character of its society. This process should
aim at promoting the living together of all the communities in Estonia on the basis of two
principles: first, the legitimate right of the Estonian government to disseminate Estonian
language among all residents and avoiding the process of asymmetric bilingualism that
characterized the Soviet occupation; second, the respect for the existence of minority
languages spoken by sizeable communities, in particular Russian, in full compliance with
the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and
Linguistic Minorities, in particular, Article 2.1: “persons belonging to national […]
minorities have the right to […] use their own language, in private and in public, freely and
without interfere78)nce or any form of discrimination”; Article 4.2: “States shall take
measures to create favourable conditions to enable persons belonging to minorities to […]
develop their culture, language, religion, traditions and customs” and Article 4.3: “States
should take appropriate measures so that, wherever possible, persons belonging to
minorities may have adequate opportunities to learn their mother tongue or to have
instruction in their mother tongue”. Specific measures could be taken to allow linguistic
minorities to reach the adequate language proficiency level demanded by the nature of
their occupation, including the provision of free-of-charge Estonian language courses.
93. The Government should establish a broad process of consultation with a view at
diminishing the gap in historical perceptions between the Estonian and Russian-speaking
communities. In particular, a collective writing by local and international scholars of a
common history of the region that is accepted and recognized by all communities would
represent a significant step to foster understanding and tolerance and would facilitate the
teaching of history at schools, which is viewed as one of the main obstacles to the living
together of the different communities.
94. Particular attention should be granted to the vulnerable situation of the Roma
community. The Government should reinforce its programmes, drawing attention to
general recommendation 27 of the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination on discrimination against Roma. In particular, specific measures should be
taken to improve the educational attainment of Roma children and to reduce dropout
rates. The Programme should also promote a sensitization effort among the Estonian
society at large to Roma history, traditions and living cultures, including their fate during