Language issues in Belarus

Reply-To: [email protected]
Sender: [email protected]
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 14:06:52 +0200 (EET)
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
Subject: Language issues in Belarus

From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>

Original sender: Felix Corley <[email protected]>

Language issues in Belarus


INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
 
BELARUS UPDATE
Vol. 1;  No. 25
October 1998
 
HUNDREDS PROTEST AGAINST SIDELINING OF BELARUSIAN LANGUAGE

On October 22, several hundred people staged a rally in defense of the
Belarusian language in the center of Minsk. According to the rally
organizers, the ratio of children entering schools teaching in
Belarusian fell from 70 per cent in 1991 to about 30 per cent this
year. In Minsk, only 7.3 per cent of the total number of children who
reached school age went to Belarusian-language schools last year, and
4.7 per cent this year. (Belapan, October 22)
 
BELARUS UPDATE
Vol. 1; No. 19
September 1998

 
BELARUSIANS PROTEST USE OF RUSSIAN LANGUAGE

About 200 parents and public activists rallied on September 16 in
downtown Minsk to protest the increasing use of Russian as a primary
language in public education. "Only 30% of the country's students can
go to schools where the primary language is Belarusian," said
Alexander Sidyaka, deputy chief of the Belarusian Language
Association, which organized the rally. Two years ago, Lukashenko made
Russian an official language, along with Belarusian, which is
difficult for Russian speakers to understand. Demonstrators claimed
that authorities harassed parents whose children went to
Belarusian-language schools and forcefully transferred such schools to
Russian-language education. Just six years ago, up to 70 percent of
the nation's students went to schools where the primary language of
teaching was Belarusian. (Associated Press, September 16)
 
*********************************************************************
Belarus Update is a regular news bulletin of the Belarus Human Rights
Support Project of the International League for Human Rights.
 
For more information e-mail [email protected] or call (212)
684-1221 or fax (212) 684-1696 or visit our web site under
construction at www.ilhr.org.

-- 
==============================================================
MINELRES - a forum for discussion on minorities in Central&Eastern
Europe

Submissions: [email protected]  
Subscription/inquiries: [email protected] 
List archive: http://www.riga.lv/minelres/archive.htm
==============================================================