Priorities for the work of the Independent Expert and the twentieth anniversary of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities 2012, para. 19
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Issues and concerns have frequently been raised with the mandate of the independent expert relating to the rights of linguistic minorities. The Declaration on Minorities establishes that States shall protect the linguistic identity of minorities within their respective territories and shall encourage conditions for the promotion of that identity. It emphasizes that minorities have the right "to use their own language, in private and in public, freely and without interference or any form of discrimination". Article 4 of the Declaration requires that "States should take appropriate measures so that, wherever possible, persons belonging to minorities may have adequate opportunities to learn their mother tongue or to have instruction in their mother tongue".