as well as Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and the European microstates, generally have clean human rights records. The prospect of EU membership (which also entails subscription to the European Convention on Human Rights) has encouraged several European states, most notably Croatia and Turkey, to improve their human rights, especially on freedom of speech and banning the death penalty. However, certain laws passed in the wake of the War on Terrorism have been condemned for encroaching on human rights. There has been criticism of the French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools and the French legislation for protecting the public against certain cults. In the UK, a new British Bill of Rights has been advocated to: protect wider range of economic, political, judicial, communication, and personal rights and freedoms; extend normal rights and freedoms to presently unprivileged business-economic minority classes; strengthen and extend the liberal social order; and establish a new independent Supreme Court with the power to strike down government laws and policies that violate basic rights and freedoms. Latvia In Latvia, citizenship, usage of mother tongue, and ethnic-based discrimination are the most acute problems for its Russian minority. Currently, half of the Russian-speaking community of Latvia are Latvian citizens, while the other half do not have citizenship of any country in the world. They form the unique legal category of "Latvian non-citizens". In some spheres their status is similar to that of citizens of Latvia (for example, in receive consular support abroad), while in some spheres they have fewer rights than foreigners (recent immigrants from EU countries can vote at municipal and EP elections but Latvian non-citizens cannot). The Russian minority in Latvia is on the decline due to emigration and the negative birth rate. The death rate among Russians in Latvia is higher than that of Latvians in Latvia and Russians in Russia, in part due to the unfavourable social conditions that have come about in Latvian cities following the enforced destruction of the industrial economy in the beginning of the 1990s. Former USSR states Following the collapse and break-up of the Soviet Union, its history of severe human right abuses were laid in the open. The situation has since improved in the majority of formerly communist states of Europe, especially of those in Central Europe. These Central European states have aligned themselves with the EU (most of them becoming members in 2004) and have undergone