MOSCOW, April 25 (RAPSI) – The Presidential Council of Human Rights has expressed its concern over a bill that makes it optional to learn native languages of Russian peoples and state languages of Russia’s federal subjects, the Council’s website reads.

According to the chairman of the Council Mikhail Fedotov, most people strive to maintain their national and ethnic identity valuing their Constitutional right to speak, think and learn in native language. He noted that violation of linguistic rights sooner or later result in serious social conflicts citing recent such examples in Ukraine and Latvia.

The Council believes that making study of native languages optional is harmful to maintaining identity of ethnic groups that speak languages other than Russian. If the bill is going to be signed into law parents and students would have to choose between additional studies of subjects that are related to their future careers and study of native languages, the Council stated. It was noted that this change will make such studies bothersome for schoolchildren and will diminish their interest in native languages.

According to the chairman of the Council’s Commission on culture rights, education and science Anita Soboleva, the proposal expressed in the bill violates Russian international obligations, disturbs ethnic relations, endangers native languages, devalues Constitutional guarantees and nullifies right of subjects to use their own state languages.