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Foreign - Thursday 31.1.2002
Mari Republic President irate at HS articles; threatens legal action
Leonid Markelov, the President of the Mari Republic in Central Russia, is furious at articles written about the state of his nation in Helsingin Sanomat in December, and is reportedly planning legal action against the newspaper.
Markelov told of his plans on January 19th in an edition of Mariyskaya Pravda. “When this mud-slinging was first published, it appeared immediately afterwards in Dobrye Sosedy”, he reported. “We are planning brinig a suit against both newspapers.”
Helsingin Sanomat’s editor-in-chief Janne Virkkunen said on Wednesday that he had not observed anything that would have given cause for such moves on the behalf of the President.
The article in HS was also covered in edited form in the International Edition (see link below).
It examined ways in which the local Mari or Cheremis minority, who speak a Finnio-Ugric language distantly related to Finnish, were being subjected to a wave of ethnic discrimination. The oppression included such things as the banning of Mari-language opposition newspapers, sacking of Mari-speaking officials, and moves to abolish the Mari National Theatre.
The subject of oppression of the ethnic minority in the Republic has also been raised in the Council of Europe, where Finnish MP Tytti Isohookana-Asunmaa has left an initiative with the Council’s parliamentary assembly to the effect that the Council’s cultural and education committee should back the Mari minority on media and educational issues.
The proposal was signed by the entire Finnish delegation and also drew support from Spain, Britain, Norway, and Sweden.
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