RIGA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th September, 2018) Latvia's Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (KNAB) said Wednesday it had fined 35 parliamentarians of local governments of the country's eastern region of Latgale, who had approved the funding for the regional parliaments' newspapers to be published not only in Latvian, but also in Russian.
Five parliamentarians of Livani municipality, 15 from Daugavpils municipality and 15 from Ludza municipality were fined 70 Euros each for including the costs for the publication of the municipal newspapers in Russian when approving budgets for 2016 and 2017.
"This is not allowed by the law on the state language. In addition, the parliamentarians did not comply with the law on preventing the squandering of financial assets and property of a public person," the watchdog said.
The only state language in Latvia is Latvian, while all other languages, including Russian, have the status of foreign language. Russian-speaking residents have repeatedly protested against the government's plan to force the schools of ethnic minorities to switch to the Latvian language. Of 2 million people living in Latvia, about 40 percent are Russian-speaking.
