Tatjana Ždanoka

Tatjana Arkadevna Ždanoka, ( _ru. Татья́на Арка́дьевна Ждано́к), born May 8 1950 in Riga, is a Latvian politician and Member of the European Parliament for For Human Rights in United Latvia; part of the European Greens–European Free Alliance group. Ždanoka is the leader of the party Equal Rights since 2001 and as its representative/co-chairperson of ForHRUL.

Her political stance is self-described as left centrism and protection of national and linguistic minorities (in Latvia, mostly Russian-speaking inhabitants). Most opponents describe Ždanoka as a Russian nationalistFact|date=June 2008, some of them — as a cosmopolitan.

Ždanoka became politically active in the late 1980s, as one of the leaders of the Interfront, a political organization opposing Latvia's independence from the Soviet Union and capitalist reforms. Prior to that, she taught mathematics at the University of Latvia, where she received her doctorate in mathematics in 1992. In March 1990, she was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the Latvian SSR. Ždanoka was also active with the Communist Party of Latvia.

After Latvia regained independence, Ždanoka was banned from running for the Latvian parliament Saeima, because she had remained active in the Communist Party after the party leadership called for a coup against the elected government of the Latvian SSR in January 1991. She was disqualified from the 1998 and 2002 parliamentary elections and sued Latvia in the European Court of Human Rights.

With the court case pending, the Latvian parliament decided not to impose restrictions on former members of the Communist Party in the 2004 European Parliament elections. Ždanoka was elected to the European Parliament in June 2004 and won the court case a few days later with a margin of 5-2. Latvia appealed the decision to the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights on the grounds that Latvia's emergence from totalitarian rule brought about by the annexation of Latvia had not been sufficiently taken into account, and on March 16 2006, the court ruled 13-4 in what became one of the European Court of Human Rights cases on Occupation of Baltic States that Ždanoka's rights had not been violated.

From 1995 till 2004 Ždanoka was co-chairperson of the Latvian Human Rights Committee. She has also been one of the leaders of Equal Rights since it foundation in 1993. In 2005 Ždanoka became one of the founders of the EU Russian-Speakers' Alliance. [http://rus.delfi.lv/news/daily/latvia/article.php?id=13585949 ru icon]

References

External links

* [http://www.pctvl.lv/?lang=en&mode=people&submode=leaders&cv_id=2 CV of Ždanoka] on the website of ForHRUL party
* [http://www.europarl.eu.int/members/public/geoSearch/view.do?country=LV&partNumber=1&language=En&id=28619 Tatjana Ždanoka in the European Parliament]
* [http://soc.kuleuven.be/iieb/ibl/docs_ibl/WP28-Vysotskaya.pdf HRUL in European Parliament: Europeanisation of a Soviet Legacy?] by A. Vysotskaya
* [http://www.zapchel.lv/?lang=en&mode=archive&submode=year2005&page_id=7 Press release of ECHR on judgement in case Ždanoka vs. Latvia, 2004]
* [http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/tkp197/view.asp?action=html&documentId=793543&portal=hbkm&source=externalbydocnumber&table=1132746FF1FE2A468ACCBCD1763D4D8149 Judgment of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights, Case of Ždanoka vs. Latvia, 2006]