Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Paranoia runs deeper : Blogger questioned by Security Police

The Latvian Security Police have questioned a blogger who regularly contributes to a blog site maintained by Kristaps Skultelis (nickname Krizdabz), one of Latvia's better-known and popular bloggers. Writing under the pseudonym Ierindas Pilsonis (Ordinary Citizen), the man(whose first name is Raitis) has harshly criticized the Latvian state and government as being little more than a rapacious mafia and has said in some posts that revolutionary violence against such a system would be justified.
The blogger, who is at least 50 years old (he mentions an encounter with the Soviet KGB in 1978, when, presumably, he was an adult) describes being questioned by a polite young Security Police officer at a dingy regional Security Police office in Rēzekne, in eastern Latvia (Krizdabz comes from that area). He describes the office as poorly equipped and relates several bizarre incidents -- such as the officer reading excerpts from his earlier blog posts that had been faxed to the regional office. The officer also asked who prints "Ordinary Citizen's" blogs as if totally clueless that blogs are electronic media and are not disseminated in printed form (except as smudged faxes inside the Security Police). The blogger was also asked what political group or foreign country he was working for (as if his blog posts had been paid by someone). He was also questioned about his relationship with Krizdabz. The whole post in Latvian can be read here. I don't know how it would survive a translation with Google Language Tools, but worth a try.
The way things look -- with the Strategic Analysis Commission of the Latvian President's office saying that public trust in the institutions of government has collapsed -- the state is increasingly paranoid about anyone expressing angry criticism and is sending chilling signals not only to the critics, but to anyone giving them a forum. That does not change the fact that people in Latvia are increasingly frustrated and angry with what they see as a corrupt, incompetent (well, maybe not the current one) government that took the nation to the edge of bankruptcy and then brought on economic strictures (at least as applied by the government) that have devastated health care, education and pensions, with more devastation to come in the next round of budget cuts.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nav skutelim 50 gadu, cik saprotu.
http://images.google.lv/imgres?imgurl=http://blogs.lnb.lv/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/kristaps1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://blogs.lnb.lv/2009/04/lasisanas-paradumi-20/&usg=__Vp7PWIOSzrPCbW98PmJI5ww-f24=&h=683&w=1024&sz=319&hl=lv&start=1&sig2=RTyVFbtl1wb3T1OVALpqJg&um=1&tbnid=t1AogwXkKhGxJM:&tbnh=100&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dkristaps%2Bskutelis%26hl%3Dlv%26rlz%3D1C1CHMB_enLV312LV312%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1&ei=0OKxSvfhD4L8-Ably5XVCQ

Anonymous said...

Nekur arī jau nav rakstīts, ka Kristapam ir 50 gadu, pamuļķi.

Anonymous said...

Juri iztulko, lūdzu, arī paša autora "garadarbu":

"Daudzus gadus apnicīgi uzstāju, lai mani bērni un mazbērni atgrieztos Latvijā, šodien pavadīju viņus tālajā ceļā un priecājos, ka viņiem nav jādzīvo Latvijā – vai tas ir normāli? Vai tas ir normāli, ka es bez kādiem sirdsapziņas pārmetumiem šobrīd nogalinātu visus Latvijas Saeimas deputātus un Latvijas ministrus? Bet es to darīšu ne mirkli nevilcinoties pie pirmās izdevības – vienkārši gribu, atdodot savu dzīvību, aizraut kapā pēc iespējas vairāk varas mafijas bosu."

Juris Kaža said...

Restoring a comment by anonymous accidentally removed:

Ierindas Pilsonis (Ordinary Citizen), the man(whose first name is Raitis) has harshly criticized the Latvian state and government as being little more than a rapacious mafia and has said in some posts that revolutionary violence against such a system would be justified.

Quoting author:

Is it normal, that I, without hesitation, would kill all MP's and ministers? I would do it by the first chance - I just want by giving my own life take down more mafia bosses.

(sorry about my english)

I don't call it free speach, I call it direct threat to kill.