|
Section: Policy
Human rights activists are demanding that European Charter is urgently adopted.
The All-Russian human rights organization, called For human rights declared yesterday that the russian government is violating a series of regulations, stated in the European Charter of regional and minorities languages. A series of releases, provided by non-government, cultural, and scientific organizations in Buryatia, the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), the Republic of Altay, Kalmykia, and Adygei served as a ground for the address, made by the metropolitan human rights activists, in that address they expressed their preoccupation for the process of regions extension.
In particular, April, 16 a referendum is to take place, where the question of the confluence of the Irkutsk region and Ust-Ordinsky Buryat autonomous region will be discussed. Lev Ponomaryov, the leader of the human rights movement announced to Gazeta that: We are not telling you how one is preparing for his referendum, and about the pressure of administration. We want to draw the attention to the fact, that the ethno cultural self-preservation of this nation is being threatened. According to Ponomaryov it is the all-federal problem, which concerns the obligations of Russia towards the UNO and European Council to preserve the endangered languages, according to the European Charter. It is one of the main documents in the European Council, which Russia had to ratify 10 years ago. This well-known Russian human rights activist believes, that the federal center does not consider the charters requirements, in starting such process of extension.
Languages become extinct faster than animals.
Scientists and politicians all over the world think that out of 6000 now existing languages not less that one third will become extinct this century. According to the doctrine of the UNO, the language is the main value of the humanity, and the loss of any of them will cause irreplaceable damage to the civilization. The general secretary of the UNO dedicated a special report to the problem of evanescent languages in the year of 2003. In Russia several dozens of languages can be characterized as vanishing. Only in Western and Southern Siberia there are some 28 languages, which may disappear , a little less in Russian Caucasia. In order to preserve these languages, the European Council adopted 1992 the charter of regional and minorities languages. For all member countries this document is compulsory for ratification.
The third part of this charter is of most interest, in this part the specific state obligations in the field of regional languages and education protection(article 8), judicial authority (article 9), administrative agencies and public services(article 10), mass media (article 11), culture(article 12), economic and social life(article 13) and frontier exchange(article 14) are listed. The articles contain many paragraphs and subparagraphs, which define the rights of the regional languages. Each state should adopt not less than 35 of these paragraphs.
Russia is on its own, special track
Today, 28 out of 44 members of the European Council ratified the charter. Last November Ukraine joined them, which though the Russian politicians, mostly the members of the State Duma by some twist of fate are accusing of a series of charters regulations violation (they refer to the limitation of the Russian language circulation).
Meanwhile, in Russia this charter is functioning even worse.
Vladimir Putin gave instructions in 2001 to send a package of documents to the State Duma in order to elaborate a draft, which would ratify the charter. It seems that the members of the State Duma forgot to do that. Last May, after Europes reminder was received, Putin was obliged to send the documents to the Ministry of regional development, so that the interregional agency could be created, which would ratify the charter. A year passed, and it seems that the ministry completely forgot about the charter.
A committee on foreign affairs in State Duma announced to Gazeta, that it can go on for years this way, as it is profitable for the officials and the State. In case the charter is adopted, they will have to create a special controlling unit, and to write the annual reports to the European Council, and what is more important to spend money on such an obscure thing as vanishing languages preservation. For example, Ukraine has assigned almost 4 million USD this year for the preservation of 13 languages, under the action of this charter. In Russia, the number of such languages is beyond all calculation.
Lev Ponomaryov says: It is not a mistake; we can not calculate exactly the number of vanishing languages in Russia, as the situation is getting worse every year. In the judgment of the human rights activist, the problem is aggravated because every year new languages fall into a category of vanishing.
Last year, the language of a relatively safe Buryat nation was included in the UNESCO red book of vanishing languages. The human rights activist claims, that the language of Bashkirs and even the Tatar language are on a waiting list. Not to mention such not numerous nations as Evenks, Mansi, Khanty
Ponomaryov asks a rhetorical question, why did not they consider this aspect during the confluence of the Irkutsk region with Ust-Ordinsky Buryat autonomous region, as Buryatia is so close, go ahead and merge with it. He is answering this question straight away- it is because the officials do not take into account the interests of small nations: After the espionage scandal, we should not talk about the state policy in all its aspects. But even if considered just the cultural aspect, then we should admit, that the state attitude towards the problems of small nations and in particular to their languages is shocking.
|
