Russian State Duma accuses Ukraine of 'ethnocide of Russians' and prepares statement to UN, OSCE and PACE
The Council of the Federation of the State Duma of Russia adopted a statement on the inadmissibility of imposing restrictions in Ukraine regarding obtaining education in native languages by indigenous peoples and national minorities.
“The law on education, signed by the President of Ukraine, will become an act of ethnocide of the Russian people in Ukraine, as the law violates the basic standards of the UN and the Council of Europe on the protection of the linguistic identity of indigenous peoples and national minorities, enshrined in international treaties ratified by Ukraine,” said a statement adopted at a meeting on Wednesday, September 27.
The document points out that beginning in 2020, the education system will use only Ukrainian, and this will lead to the disappearance of Russian-language schools and classes as well as schools for national minorities.
The law “grossly infringes upon and discriminates against the rights of a significant part of the population of Ukraine - millions of Russians, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Greeks, Moldovans, Poles, Romanians and other speakers of regional and minority languages of Ukraine,” the Russian parliamentarians said.
In addition, the State Duma of the Russian Federation declared solidarity with the position of other countries which are protesting, including Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece, Moldova, Poland and Romania, and called upon the parliaments of other countries, whose official languages are recognized by Ukraine as regional languages and minority languages, to take steps to condemn the already-adopted education law.
It was noted that the application will be sent to the UN, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Interparliamentary Assembly of CIS member states, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, and the parliaments of European countries. The document was supported by 159 senators.
At their plenary meeting on Wednesday, the State Duma also intends to consider and adopt a bill condemning the Ukrainian education law.
As has been reported, Deputy Prime Minister Vyacheslav Kyrylenko said that the State Duma, “protecting” the rights of the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine, forgot about the rights of Ukrainians in Russia; there are no Ukrainian schools in the country, where 8 million Ukrainians live.