More mention of Dmitrijs Smirnovs detention

Latvia continues to appear in the international press in a negative or mocking light because of the detention of Dmitrijs Smirnovs almost a month ago.

The latest mention is in the political journal The New Statesman, which urges its readers to spend this coming Christmas, otherwise:

Such pessimism endangers the economy and would even be a criminal offence in Latvia, where a university economics lecturer, Dmitrijs Smirnovs, was arrested last month for telling his students, in a Darlingesque kind of way, that things were arguably pretty bad. Happily, Mr Smirnovs was released after two days and, while we do not condone enforcing economic optimism, it would be good to see a little of it here. For, paraphrasing Keynes, it is our gloom about the future that risks bringing about the very result we all hope to avoid.

The full article can be found here.

Meanwhile, Nadeem Walayat, writing in the British-based The Market Oracle financial website echos some of my feelings:

The response of Latvia's state police is reminiscent of the dark days of the USSR when the truth was only uttered in the confines of ones homes and any public announcements that did not tow the state line were met by arrest and a summary one way trips to the goolag(sic).

The whole post can be found here.

The prestigous French newspaper Le Monde has also published a story about the detention of Dmitrijs Smirnov.

Poland's Gazeta Wyborca also has a story, though what exactly it says, I have no idea :).

Meanwhile a Norwegian portal, Hegnar Online, puts it bluntly (loosely translating  its headline about Latvia): Here it is forbidden to ask questions about the economy.

I recently talked to a well-informed source close to Latvia's ruling circles and asked this person whether anyone cared about the disgrace that the Security Police actions had brought upon Latvia. My source essentially said that they were completely clueless and didn't think it mattered. Anyone suspect this country is run by provincial dimwits or worse??

Mention the financial crisis, go directly to jail (and the kangaroos laugh)

Now they know Down Under. This is a piece by AFP's Riga correspondent Alex Tapinsh. The full text is available here. More laughs for the kangaroos.

The shame continues...

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ)  has published (online and, presumably, in print) a story about the arrest of Dmitrijs Smirnovs. WSJ reporter Andrew Higgins notes that: 

Virtually no one here worries that Latvia is reverting to the ways of the Soviet Union, when the KGB hunted down dissidents and kept the population in cowed silence. Unlike Russia, where state-controlled media largely ignore bad news, Latvia has a vibrant free press.

I differ somewhat from this assessment. There are certain similarities between the Security Police and the Latvian KGB in the very last years of its existence, when it (if I recall correctly) also had a press secretary and a policy of warning and harassing certain types of dissent, rather than arresting dissidents and sending them to Siberian exile. The Security Police are operating in a manner similar to the KGB Lite of, say, 1990 - 1991.  To be sure, the Security Police are not the KGB of the 1970s and 1980s, nor even remotely like the Stalinist goons of earlier decades. 

Since the Security Police are  operating on orders of the government, I would also say that, intentionally or not, the government is pushing parts of the population toward "cowed silence". 

The word continues to spread

More publications are picking up the story of the repression of free speech in Latvia, among other things, making it clear that the actions of the Security Police have had a chilling effect on public discussion of economic issues. 

Here are some links (the text appears similar):

Monsters & Critics

Top News.in(India, as if they didn't have trouble closer to home)

Earth Times (a news portal)

The basic story looks like it came from Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA)