RIGA, April 1 (RAPSI) – Latvia will not amend its state language law in connection with a recent set of UN recommendations, education minister Ina Drujviete stated on Tuesday.

The UN human right committee published a report last week, asserting that Latvia’s official language law contains discriminatory elements that could be detrimental to ethnic minorities.

The committee called on Latvia to amend the law and make it more minority friendly.

Over 44% of Latvian citizens are Russian-speaking. Latvian is recognized as a the only official language, with Russian having a foreign-language status. For speaking other languages in certain work places, minority-language speakers can face fines.

Over 300,000 of Latvia's population of 2 million are considered non-citizens, who are not allowed to vote in elections and referendums.

Most of these non-citizens are Russian speakers. Latvia maintains that it was illegally incorporated into the USSR in 1940 and then occupied by the Soviets until 1991, during which time hundreds of thousands of Russians migrated to the republic.