From January 1, 2026, Latvia is set to prohibit the teaching of Russian as a second foreign language in schools.

From January 1, 2026, Latvia is set to prohibit the teaching of Russian as a second foreign language in schools.

Starting the same date, Russian-language TV and radio broadcasting will be banned in state media. Additionally, the VAT on sales of Russian-language books will increase to 21%.

These measures aim to reduce the presence of the Russian language and strengthen the role of the Latvian language in society.

Russian is the native language for 36% of Latvians.[1]

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language_in_Latvia ↩︎

  • Staines [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    581·
    3 months ago

    Democracy is when you remove peoples citizenship, right to vote, pensions, ban their schooling, ban their language, ban their media, and tax them separately.

        • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          17·
          3 months ago

          I do remember reading that conversion of non-Arabs wasn’t seen as a universal good by Muslim rulers, at least during the days of the early Muslim empire: the fear being that you could convert your way out of a reliable income source.

        • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
          4·
          3 months ago

          Yes, muslims paid zakat which was lower, but the harshest tax was land tax, which was at first 10% for muslims (ushr) but usually way higher for non-muslims (kharaj), this was also the source of some hilarious debunking of western antimuslim propaganda because early caliphate not only did not forced people to become muslims under the fire and sword (as wasusually the case for Europeans) but was actively discouraging people from conversion to islam. Later though, Umayyad economy went into trouble and kharaj was also levied on muslims.