To the President of the United States of America Mr. Barack OBAMA Your Excellency, Mr. President! As far as we informed your meeting with the Presidents of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia is planned on 30 of August in Washington, DC. It is expected that during this meeting you are going to discuss the present state of the US-Baltic dialogue. Our country will be represented by the President of Latvia Andris Berzins. Appealing directly to you, we would like to emphasize our problem, which is unlikely to be voiced by President Berzins. The problem we are talking about is the problem of mass "non-citizenship" in Latvia. More than 300 thousand inhabitants of our country are here legally for more than 25 years (including those who were born here), but they are suffering with the humiliating status of "non-citizens" (aliens). "Non-citizens" are silently suspected by the authorities of Latvia as persons who are guilty in so called "the Soviet occupation". We, non-citizens, regularly pay all the taxes (the same as a citizens of Latvia), but we are deprived of the essential right to political representation. We were banned to take part in the elections, we have no right to stand as candidates, we cannot hold certain positions. There are 79 differences between citizens and non-citizens of Latvia! In our own country, in our Mother-land we are second-class people. Latvia is going to hold a presidency in the European Union in 2015. But how is it possible if the basic principle of democracy "No taxation without representation" is grossly violated during all last decades? On behalf of all Latvian non-citizens will ask you to indicate to the authorities of Latvia on the glaring injustice of non-citizens status, and to require cancellation of the shameful institute of non-citizenship! The initiative group of non-citizens of Latvia
Posted on: Wed, 21 Aug 2013 20:34:58 +0000
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