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". 

National Security chairman backs repression

Dzintars Jaundžeikars, chairman of the National Security Commission of the Latvian Parliament, the Saeima, has come out in favor of punishing rumor-mongers and making people "think before they speak" about matters of the national currency and economy.
His remarks during a radio broadcast were reported (non-Latvian speakers can try a Google translation from Latvian for a good laugh) by the Delfi.lv news portal, generating, as of this writing, more than 100 overwhelmingly critical and negative comments. Some comments, unfortunately, harked back to Jaundžeikars angry remarks about conspiracies against him and his family when his son was arrested for allegedly driving under the influence of drugs some time ago. This is not really relevant to the issue at hand, and Jaundžeikars remarks, even if imprudent and foolish, are covered by his right to free expression.

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)

My CNN iReport on the repression of free speech

I made a first attempt at doing a CNN iReport on the threats to free speech in Latvia. I did it on my Macbook using the built-in camera, but with some problems as to where to put the text. I don't have a teleprompter, so I don't read with eyes to camera as one should. I give myself a  C+. Maybe next time, I will do it differently, speaking without a script and from a better environment.

So here it is:

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???

Latvian police actions bring shock, disgrace and ridicule

Shock, disgrace and ridicule of the Latvian authorities and the country's purported democracy and freedom of expression are the result of the actions of the Security Police.

The latest to write about the recent detention of an academic and interrogation of a musician is Germany's leftish TAZ.

Meanwhile, blogger  Edward Hugh, who closely follows the Baltic economies, writes in one of his several blogs European Economonitor:

And it is my opinion that, despite all the attendant difficulties, devaluation is the best option among the unappetising list of unpleasant options presently available to Latvia (and the other Baltic states, and Bulgaria). Unfortunately, having reached this point there are simply no "pleasant" options available.

The curious thing is that for voicing this opinion I could go to prison in Latvia.

According to the Baltic Course online newspaper Ventspils University College lecturer Dmitrijs Smirnovs was detained for two days recently on suspicion of spreading rumors about the devaluation of the Latvian currency. He was detained in connection with an opinion that he had expressed during a debate about the development of the Latvian economy and the future of the Latvian banking and credit system. His arrest followed the publication of his opinion in Ventspils' local newspaper.

Largely citing Edward Hugh, the liberal American blog The American Prospect reports on the activities of the Latvian Security police.

I have already posted about the Index on Censorship Free Speech blog noting what is happening in Latvia.  Some of the first reports in English of the detention of Smirnovs, however, came from a local publication The Baltic Course.

While I am writing, the Google news search has also popped up an item on the Monsters&Critics portal. 

That's about it for now.