Latvian Security Police backs away from being a NeoKGB

The Latvian Security Police seems to have backed off from being the "neo -KGB" that it was in 2008, when it arrested an economics lecturer and questioned a musician for making remarks about the banking system and the Latvian currency, the lat. That incident inspired me to start this blog.
Now it seems that the Security Police (Drošibas policija/DP) have refused to act on a request by National Alliance Saeima deputy Raivis Dzintars that the DP investigate statements by a teacher of Russian language and literature that he was " disloyal to Latvia, because the regime (meaning the government) was causing problems for his family."

The DP refused to act on Dzintars request saying that:  " A person's subjective attitude toward the state, including one that is negative, cannot be the basis for evaluating whether a criminal investigation should be started."

Let's hope this has killed any plans for using the DP as an unofficial "loyalty police" by the sometimes disturbingly authoritarian Nationalist Alliance.
While I don't believe the Security Police are yet a hotbed of libertarians, it will be difficult for them to back off from this stance and go back to acting as a chilling effect on political expression. Good stuff does happen here from time to time.

Latvian security police end investigation of incitement to desecrate the flag

The Latvian Security Police (Drošības policija) have ended an investigation surrounding calls on the internet for persons to desecrate the Latvian flag. The case has been ended because no "victim" of any crime was found (surprise, surprise!). Had anyone been found guilty of the actual crime of flag desecration, the perpetrator could face a stiff fine and up to three years imprisonment.
The call to desecrate the flag was published on the internet last year and contained a statement that any any "radical" advocate of free expression (say, like the US First Amendment) can only agree with:

In our view, any person, citizen or non-citizen, has the absolute right to do with the flag as he or she pleases. At the same time, the state has no right to punish a person for defacing, burning, tearing, or tramping the flag, The state must guarantee the right of persons to freely express their views. If a person has reason to take such actions with the flag, then he shall not even be deterred from such an action, nver mind punished.


For my Latvian readers:

"Mūsu skatījumā, jebkuram cilvēkam - pilsonim vai nepilsonim - ir absolūtas tiesības rīkoties ar karogu pēc saviem ieskatiem. Savukārt valstij nav absolūti nekādu tiesību cilvēku sodīt par to, ka viņš karogu izķēmo, dedzina, plēš, mīda kājām. Valstij ir jāgarantē cilvēka tiesības brīvi paust savus uzskatus. Ja kāds cilvēks uzskata, ka viņam ir pamats tā rīkoties ar karogu, tad viņu nedrīkst pat atturēt no šādas rīcības, kur nu vēl sodīt.

I fully agree with this statement, although I would never burn a Latvian flag. To me it represents, or should represent, the freedom that allows anyone else to do just that (the same goes for the US flag).

I would qualify the right to burn or desecrate a flag by saying -- desecrate a flag that is your property and don't create a significant public nuisance (setting something other than the flag on fire). Ripping down flags or national symbols that belong to public authorities or private persons is vandalism and should be punished with no greater severity than the damaging or destruction of any other, non-symbolic public property, such as a no-parking sign.

As for the Security Police, maybe they should avoid the chilling effect of investigations of this kind. As for the Saeima, it should repeal the laws that forbid flag desecration or give it any special status above and beyond the laws applicable to vandalism and destruction of public property. 

Latvian state language agency head denounces academic to Security Police

Based on media published excerpts of an interview by Sergejs Kruks, an academic researcher,  the head of the Latvian State Language Agency (Valsts valoda aģentūra/VVA)  Jānis Valdmanis, denounced the researcher to the Latvian Security Police, who summoned Kruks for questioning last week.
Kruks told the Latvian news agency BNS that his research indicated Latvians had to change or abandon some of their traditional values and give up the idea of preserving the country " as an open-air museum" where poets and artists can make a living and where national costumes, the language and traditions are preserved."
Valdmanis apparently interpreted this as a violation of laws against inciting ethnic hatred and asked the Security Police to investigate.
Kruks, an associate professor at the Riga Stradiņa university, is the second academic in recent years to be investigated by the Security Police for statements made to journalists and published in the media. Dmitrijs Smirnovs, a lecturer in economics at a college in Ventspils was arrested, taken to Security Police headquarters in Riga and held for two days after suggesting that people should not trust Latvian banks and the Latvian lat at a round-table discussion published in a local newspaper.

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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 snake coils to hibernate?

After a short press uproar and blogging frenzy, we are now entering that time when all that happened with the Latvian Security Police will be slowly forgotten, but not gone. This process applies to me, too, as I had to have my memory jogged by a comment writer to remember that this same police agency was sent after an old lady who wrote an angry letter to then Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis. Seems that getting nasty mail from citizens is part of the job of prime ministers, presidents and politicians generally. Even I, a journalist, am getting some abuse (an exposure to unintentional black humor of homo(post)sovieticus ) for my opinions expressed, most recently, on Delfi.lv. But apparently, this was not in Kalvitis job description, so send the cops...
But the fact is that one should have started reacting then, while the repression was still merely absurd. When the Security Police go after college lecturers and musicians, then it is serious (?). No! It was serious already with the pensioner, and with the people at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga who also (so say my sources) got visits from the Security Police around a year ago for even mentioning the "d"word. This was just a little past the peak of the party, real estate booming, a McDonald's style drive-in bank bringing cash in cups to a family who wants -- "oh yes, a trip to Egypt." Even then it was dangerous and worthy of repressive measures to hint that the big balagāns (carnival) was going to end and what that could, possibly, do to the lat.
The current Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis, has made some ambiguous mumblings on Latvian Radio that maybe the Security Police didn't interpret the law quite right, but also letting everyone know that you still had to watch your mouth (or keyboard, or press). More waffled mutterings were heard from politicians on the What is Happening in Latvia (Kas notiek Latvijā) talk show, except from the otherwise maligned, so-called pro-Russian Jakovs Pliners and another Saeima deputy from his side of the political spectrum. Pliners at least said cleary that the government was violating the freedom of speech. While I may disagree with the colorful ex-educator (and blogger) on other issues, at least he wasn't mealy-mouthed.
That, probably, is the end of the issue in the public space. The snake has coiled up in its lair and will stay there until it all blows over. Then someone in our wise goverment will read or hear something (or maybe the snake itself will see it) and turn it loose again, but all of this will have been largely forgotten or written off as an aberration. Those scared into silence or overcautiousness will remain silent or confine their statements to the blandest assessments of the economic situation. And the ratchet of authoritarianism will have advance yet a few more notches.

Latvian PM : Oops! But, ...er. the law is the law

Latvia's Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis told Latvian Radio that the criminal proceedings started by the Security Police against two persons for allegedly undermining the national currency and financial system "were an incomplete interpretation of the law" (Whatever that means).
At the same time, the PM said that people have to reckon with the consequences of what they say, and that it cannot be that " a law is adopted and cannot be applied to anyone in this country".
In what was described as an unwilling discussion of the prosecutions that have made front page headlines in Latvia, Godmanis finally tilted toward justifying the Security Police actions by saying that anyone making statements at a public event (alluding to the concert where musician Valters Fridenbergs joked about taking money from banks??) or in the media (alluding to the publication of college instructor Dmitrijs Smirnovs) that call for specific actions, and "if the law sees that it may destabilize the financial system" one "has to reckon with the consequences."
The news report, in Latvian, can be found here.
So what has the head of the government that ultimately runs the Security Police said? Uncomfortable mumblings that almost take no position but sort of leave things as they are. No specifics as to how the law was incompletely intepreted. And if so, what should be done? Should someone clarify the law to the Security Police so they act differently. At best, it looks like Godmanis senses, somewhere through the post-soviet fog, that his police agency and government have serioiusly fucked up. He just don't know what to do..
The other is that the PMs mutterings merit a moderately loud WTF???

Security Police holding "preventive" talks with bank employees

The news portal Delfi, citing the Russian language Latvian newspaper Telegraf, reports that the Security Police are holding "preventive"talks with Latvian bank employees to ensure that they don't speak out of line about the Latvian currency and economy/
Hey! I thought it was a private matter of private companies, banks included, to set policies and brief their employees on permissible contacts with the press and media.
The story in Latvian is here, also some pretty sharp comments.

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.

An outside comment from Mr. J. Fear :)

I got this interesting comment from someone who uses the name Jānis Bailes (or John Fear):

The actions of the state police against people speaking out on the economic and political situation bring to mind three possibilities.

1. The political class wants to cover up the impending economic crisis so that they can convert all their ill-gotten assets into cash/Swiss bank accounts before the average person figures out what is coming.

2. The state security institutions are pursuing a 'business as usual' approach to anybody that says anything the political class doesn't like.

3. The secret police have some rougue units that are acting out of their authority.


Well, let us do a little Sherlock Holmes deduction.

The third possibility can not be true because these kinds of suppression of freedom of speech have been going on for years (since the last independence). If the third possibility were true, then we should see an investigation of the secret police under the laws for instigating a financial crisis. Surely anybody that learns of what they are doing will really believe that they are trying cover up a real crisis that is coming.

The second possibility could be true, but is not a builder of confidence because any political and economic system built on suppression of free speech and transparency can not be durable. Free speech and transparency are fundamentals of capitalistic systems that recover from market shocks. The second possibility predicts continuous extreme economic and political crisis.

The first possibility has the best chance of being true. Think back to the days of Bank of Baltija when all the politicians withdrew their deposits just before the bank closed and cost the average Latvians $400 million dollars in losses. The political class certainly knows how to look after themselves and you can be sure that they have already moved all the cash they can to their offshore accounts.

Sincerely,

Janis Bailes

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.