Latvia Outlaws Russian in the Media

The Latvian parliament has approved a radical new restriction on the use of the Russian language in national media. Broadcasting or publishing in Russian will now be allowed exclusively in situations of extreme emergency.

Examples include the declaration of war or a major natural disaster, when communicating vital information to the entire population justifies overriding the ban.

Russian has now been formally and definitively declared illegal in Latvian media. The decision comes despite the language remaining the mother tongue for a significant portion of Riga’s residents. Parliamentarians defended the measure by citing a ruling from the Constitutional Court, which concluded that the use of Russian in the media contradicts the country’s fundamental law.