Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-12-Speech-4-174"
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"en.20050512.25.4-174"2
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".
Mr President, when I speak about the troubles of the Mari El minority in Russia, it is not my aim to blame, once more, the Russian authorities. Russia is not a member of our Community. One can say that it has more than enough problems without my criticism. The situation of the Russian minority in some European countries is also worrying - perhaps, sometime, we can discuss that as well. However, this afternoon we are talking about a small Finno-Ugric nation somewhere in the huge Russia.
Around 750 000 Maris live in the Republic of Mari El inside the Russian Federation. The autonomous Republic is named after them, but they happened to become a minority in their own land. In a country with fair minority rights it is not a problem, but that is not the case in the small Republic of Mari El. The Russian-speaking majority elected a Russian president against a Mari candidate, which can be understood. However, the re-elected president seems to lead an undemocratic and brutal fight against his opposition and, through them, the whole Mari community.
Mari opposition newspapers can be printed only outside of the Republic. Opposition journalists and intellectuals have been attacked frequently; some of them have been killed. Minority language education is threatened by the local authorities. We have to condemn those kinds of anti-democratic atrocities always, but in the case of a small nation, the attacks against the basic national institutions, such as schools and media, threaten the very existence of the nation. That is why we condemn the violence against the Mari minority in Russia, and that is why we ask the Russian Government to show the same kind of attitude toward its minorities that the Russian Government would like to be provided for the Russian minorities elsewhere in Europe.
I believe this is the first time that the name of the Mari people has been mentioned in the European Parliament. I welcome them here, both as a European and a Finno-Ugric brother from Hungary. I wish them all the best. They should know that a nation, small or big, inside or outside of Europe, deserves the same respect and the same rights. I hope our Russian partners also understand that every minority – Russians out of Russia and non-Russians inside Russia – deserve the same rights to save their identity, culture and linguistic heritage."@en1
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