From linguistic segregation to criminal prosecution. Anti-Russianism in the
Baltic States and Ukraine
Geneva, 28 November 2019
Russian civil society and organizations of Russian compatriots abroad state
that linguistic segregation has become the basis of policy in the Baltic countries and
Ukraine, where it is implemented in relation to the Russian-speaking and Russiancultural populations that make up at least 30-40% of the populations of these
countries. Extensive political persecution and mass arrests of human rights defenders
and Russophiles are aimed at suppressing the realization of fundamental human
rights to mother tongue education, access to information in one’s native language,
and the accessibility of state institutions and the mass media in one’s native
language.
The indigenous Russian-speaking population of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia,
and Ukraine is in a situation, in which there is a prohibition on receiving education
in their native language, which in itself is one of the most glaring examples of a new
form of racism spanning the European continent and еxpressed as anti-Russianism.
We are warning the international community that the authorities in these European
countries are essentially beginning a new anti-Russian Holocaust!
But a simple legislative prohibition will fail and will never succeed in
eradicating loyalty to one’s mother tongue, the pull of one’s native culture, or the
population’s need for a spiritual connection with their historical center of
civilization, Russia.
In order to suppress national minorities, the ethnocracies of these countries
must commit criminal actions against the leaders of Russian national organizations,
initiating unproven, but nonetheless real, criminal cases and legal proceedings
through law enforcement agencies, and thereby destroying the life, family, and
health of those who disagree with the new racism. We have observed this in Latvia,
Estonia, Lithuania, and in Ukraine. Algirdas Paleckis, Alexander Gaponenko, Yuri
Alekseev, Vladimir Linderman, speaking out for the inalienable human right to
speak one’s native language, were faced with illegal accusations from authorities
using far-fetched wording, and were imprisoned and tortured. Less than a month
ago, the Latvian State Security Service opened a new criminal case. Members of the
board of the Russian Union of Latvia and the organizer of the educational project