Dmitrijs Smirnovs, arrested for published opinion, sues the Latvian Security Police

Instead of writing, I have recorded this as a video. What do readers/viewers think?

Security police drop charges against Smirnovs

The Latvian Security Police (Drošības policija/DP) have dropped their case against the economist Dmitrijs Smirnovs, who was jailed for questioning late last year because of critical remarks about the Latvian banking system and the national currency, the lat, according to media reports.

Pending completion of their investigation, the DP banned Smirnovs from foreign travel and, by his own admission, had a chilling effect on his public statements and publications after the arrest. The case brought disgrace on Latvia as a violator of free expression and was the inspiration for this blog.

Smirnovs told journalists he has not changed his pessimistic view of the Latvian economy -- last October, he advised people not to keep their money in Latvian banks or in lats in a panel discussion reported by a Ventspils newspaper, triggering his detention more than a month later.

The DP also called in Valters Fridenbergs, a musician, for questioning because of jokes he cracked to a concert audience about not running off to the nearest cash dispenser (bankomat) because of worries about the Latvian economy and currency. Charges against him were dropped some months ago.

There are bigger f**kwits...

There are bigger fuckwits than Latvia's parliamentarians, but given time, our Lithuanian (or leiši, a kind of very mild Latvian racist term for the folks to the south) brethren may well lose that honor. The Lithuanian parliament has passed a law forbidding "favorable" discussion of homosexuality. which, in classic chilling-effect terms, forbids any discussion at all. It brings back old Latvian prejudices of an ignorant, impoverished rabble of provincial peasants (a la Lithuanian/leišu beggars wailing by the church -- a folkloric Latvian phrase -- gaudo kā leišu nabagi pie baznīcas). The law seems to have passed with an overwhelming majority. These folks really believe in this kind of repression.
Alas, Lithuania, formally, is a modern European Union member state, just as Latvia is. But Latvia, too busy with its intractable economic disaster (and spinning the wheels of a downward spiral with frantic budget cuts) would probably do the same. Certainly, Riga's near future deputy mayor, Aunārs Šlesers -- hey, I meant Ainārs :), Latvians will get the joke of that Freudian misspelling-- will try to ban any activities discussing sexual minorities in his city-state.
Meanwhile, with drafting its own anti-gay-speech law on the back burner, Latvia has enough trouble with one of Sweden's leading dailies, Expressen, demanding in an unsigned (a view of the paper's editorial board) editorial to Stop Latvian Censorship Now.* The paper refers to a law that forbids spreading false information about the national currency and the financial system. One of Expressen's recent guest opinion writers, the Latvian economics lecturer Dmitrijs Smirnovs, was arrested last fall for warning, in a public forum reported by a regional newspaper, that people should not keep their money in Latvian lats or Latvian banks. For this, he was detained for two days by the Latvian Security Police, in an action that made them a renewed version of the Soviet KGB.
Expressen now writes that Sweden's Finance Minister Anders Borg should make financial assistance to Latvia contigent on a repeal of Latvia's restrictions on free speech. "Instead of devaluing the lat, Latvia has devalued the freedom of expression," the Swedish daily wrote.
One can only agree. After all, the Smirnovs case was the reason for starting this blog. There is still reason to continue it.

* link in Swedish

Criminal investigation against musican ended

The Latvian Security Police have ended a criminal investigation against the musician Valters Frīdenbergs for allegedly destabilizing the Latvian financial system by comments joking made at a concert in November 2008. No formal charges have been filed.
According to the LETA news agency, the criminal investigation against Ventspils University College lecturer Dmitrijs Smirnovs continues, and he is still banned from leaving the country. Smirnovs was arrested in Ventspils, brought to Riga and detained for questioning for two days in November following publication of a report in a newspaper of a public discussion where he said that people should not keep their money in Latvian banks and in the Latvian currency, the lat.
The farcical investigation against Frīdenbergs has ended, but the case of Dmitrijs Smirnovs, a blatant violation of free speech, must not be forgotten. The chilling effect of what was done to him by Latvia's Neo-KGB still affects him and others intimidated by the actions of the Security Police.
People should keep up the pressure and express their continued outrage that the criminal investigation continues against the Ventspils academic. E-mail your protests to dp@dp.gov.lv.

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??

More blogs examine free speech violations in Latvia

They keep on coming...

I have found more blogs referring to the violation of the freedom of speech in Latvia by the Security Police (with the consent, I am sure, of the government):

The American Sentinel (a libertarian-leaning blog)

The openly libertarian blog, The Beacon, is worth quoting:

If the U.S. government were to attempt such suppression of criticism, it would have a big job on its hands. In this country, criticism of the government, the economy’s major institutions, and the present state of affairs is nearly universal, so a mass arrest might create a situation in which each guard had to oversee a million prisoners. But, of course, the government would not need to go to such extremes, because of little bit of well-publicized suppression goes a long way in persuading a multitude of potential critics to hold their tongues and keep their fingers off their keyboards.

The conservative National Review Online also mentions the incidents in Latvia.

A slightly strange German-language blog Porky's also writes extensively about this with the headline, freely translated: A Finance Crisis? TO JAIL!!!

The Norwegian internet newsletter E24 also picked up the story.

Nothing has gotten as much negative publicity and ridicule for Latvia in recent years as this idiot move by the Security Police and the government behind it. 

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". 

Student reports Security Police action to prosecutor

Andrejs Leijejs, a student at the University of Latvia, has written to Latvia' s Prosecutor-General asking that the agency investigate whether the Security Police have not violated the Latvian Constitution by detaining for questioning and then imposing a travel ban on Ventspils University College instructor Dmitrijs Smirnovs.

The Security Police have started criminal proceedings against Smirnovs for statements about the Latvian banking system in a public discussion of the economic and financial crisis published in the regional newspaper Ventas Balss. Smirnovs said that in view of excessive lending by mainly Swedish-owned Latvian banks, he would not keep funds in the banks or in the Latvian currency, the lats.

Leijejs asks the Prosecutor-General to determine whether the actions against Smirnovs violated the Latvian constitution's guarantee of freedom of speech and the provisions of the constitution that declare Latvia as a democratic republic.

For Latvian readers, here is the lead of the Diena story on this. The complete story, with a link to the text of the student' s submission (iesniegums) is here.

Latvijas Universitātes students Andrejs Leijējs ģenerālprokuratūrai lūdz izvērtēt drošības policijas rīcību uz divām diennaktīm aizturot Ventspils augstskolas Finanšu un grāmatvedības katedras lektoru Dmitriju Smirnovu, kā arī vēlāk liedzot viņam izbraukt no valsts. Kā Dienai norāda A.Leijējs, viņš aicina izvērtēt vai drošības policija ar savu rīcību nav pārkāpusi Satversmes pantu, kas paredz, ka ikvienam ir tiesības paust savus uzskatus un cenzūra ir aizliegta. A.Leijējs lūdz arī pārbaudīt, vai nav pārkāpts Satversmes pants, kas nosaka, ka Latvija ir demokrātiska republika.

Repression works, it seems

I just watched an interview with Dmitrijs Smirnovs, the Ventspils University College (Ventspils Augstskola) instructor detained and questioned by the Latvian Security Police on Latvian Independent Television (LNT). Smirnovs described how his detention started with a phone call from the Security Police, then a meeting (he was transported to Riga) then detained for questioning. The most significant thing he said was the he would not be commenting on economic issues to the media any more. 

This is exactly what the chilling effect is all about. This is how it works, people are intimidated and keep their views to themselves. This is what the Latvian Security Police motherfuckers wanted, this is what the motherfuckers got. Let's call things and state agencies for what they are.