Slavonic University’s 10th anniversary confirms that national minorities in Moldova have their rights respected

The 10th anniversary of the Slavonic University of Moldova’s foundation is a sure confirmation that national minorities in Moldova have their rights respected regarding education, say the organizers and participants in the International Practical-Scientific Conference themed “Human rights and national minorities rights in Moldova”. The event was organized by the Slavonic University on April 16-17 and took place on the premises of the Parliament. The conference was held within the framework of this year’s theme – 2008 being declared as the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, aimed at analyzing the legal aspect of the current dialogue in Moldova. The dean of the Slavonic University, Oleg Babenco, emphasized the relevance of the Conference’s theme for Moldova. In the opening speech Babenco said that Moldova aims at becoming a truly democratic state where dignity and human rights are set to be the highest values. Moldova is also a multicultural state and thus requires that the national minorities’ rights to be respected in order to achieve a friendly dialogue among the national groups – a primordial factor for Moldova’s stability. Oleg Babenco mentioned that the Slavonic University is not only educating representatives of various ethnicities, but is also preparing new generation jurists for a country in a process of modernization with a high-level juridical culture. Parliament Speaker Marian Lupu stated that identifying a compromise in solving various problems is closely tied to human rights and liberties. Marian Lupu mentioned some problems to be the linguistic run in the territory, preservation of the cultural heritage, interethnic relationships, as well as major problems for any multi-ethnic educational system concerning the right to auto-determination and the existence of unrecognized states. These problems require a special attention, a consensus of various options for conflict resolution, said the Speaker. Communist MP Vadim Misin stated that it is necessary to immediately amend the Law on the functioning of languages on the territory of Moldova. The mechanisms of this Law, adopted before the country’s Constitution, are obsolete and even ignored by some political structures, said the deputy. Misin also stated that he, together with MP Mihail Sidorov, will continue to oppose the ratification of the European Book for regional languages. The Book is entirely wrong for Moldova’s current situation, whereas its ratification will constitute an impediment to the Transnistrian conflict resolution, said Vadim Misin. In his opinion, Russian language has a feeble position in the document. The MP opposes the idea of education in national minorities’ languages: obliging children from Gagauzia to study in the Gagauz language will only make them flee to Turkey in order to continue their studies and work. Misin insisted that his own opinion regarding the two documents is included in the final declaration of the participants at the Conference. The Conference brought together lawmakers, members of the Government, representatives of the Moldovan Lawyers Bar and non-governmental organizations, experts in jurisprudence of the Moldovan Academy of Sciences and higher education institutions from various countries. The ambassadors of Ukraine, Bulgaria and Belarus also attended. 20 reports and communications expected to be presented in two days will be included in a further publication.