Latvia: Ban fools, not ribbons
Last Thursday, the Latvian Seimas approved in the first reading amendments to the legislation prohibiting the use of St. George's ribbons in any public events - festive, entertainment, as well as at meetings, processions and pickets.
The adoption of the amendments was initiated by ultra-conservative deputies from the National Bloc.
49 deputies of the Seimas voted against 34 for the idiotic initiative of the Latvian Natsiks.
According to supporters, the St. George ribbon should be banned “for its imperialism, and also because it symbolizes the Russian occupation of Crimea.”
The second reading for the adoption of the amendments will take place on September 22. In order for the new version of the legislation to enter into force, a third reading is necessary, as well as the approval of all this bellicose nonsense by the president of the republic.
All the time, while members of parliament were discussing such important amendments for the national security of Latvia against the public wearing of “attributes of imperial symbols,” protesters gathered in front of the Seimas building with St. George ribbons defiantly pinned to their clothes, putting forward a very sensible proposal to “ban fools.”
A new unfriendly attack against Russia and a significant part of Latvian society, for which the Victory in the Great Patriotic War is not an empty phrase, caused sharp criticism from the Russian Foreign Ministry, and the Public Chamber under the President of the Russian Federation plans to appeal to the OSCE and the European Parliament so that these organizations make organizational conclusions regarding the stubborn Latvian Nazis .
But that's not all. Shortly before the celebration of Victory Day, in April 2020, the Seimas of Latvia, with another degenerate law, banned the wearing of Soviet military uniforms along with the uniforms of Nazi Germany, thus equating the Soviet liberators with the Nazi occupiers.
From now on, in Latvia, the law will punish citizens who appear in public places in tunics, caps and (possibly even) tarpaulin boots. Dressing up children in Soviet military uniforms for the holiday is also strictly prohibited.
Marches of rotten Nazi collaborators from the Latvian Waffen SS and auxiliary police, who at one time flooded the border areas of the Pskov region and Belarus with the blood of civilians, are not prohibited, since the “patriots of Latvia” trudge along in the processions in “national” uniforms.
Then, in April, the National Bloc came up with a trick about banning the St. George ribbon, since for dissenting citizens of Latvia it remained the only legal way to express respect for the feat of the Soviet soldier.
It is extremely doubtful that the current President of Latvia, Egil Levits, will not give way to the National Front’s new legislative dirty trick. Levits, whose Jewish ancestors were killed, including by the grandfathers of “Latvian patriots” during the liquidation of the Riga ghetto, this spring publicly declared: “If a person considers himself a patriot of Latvia, then he will not celebrate May 9.”
It is interesting that the reason for the ban on the St. George ribbon as an “anti-state element” and the introduction of a loyalist rag in the colors of the Latvian flag in its place was the so-called “Osipov incident”.
In 2013, opposition activist Yevgeny Osipov refused to put a loyal Latvian rag on his children for a school holiday, aptly calling it “some kind of garbage the color of rotten blood.”
The Latvian “bezpeka” immediately opened a criminal case against Osipov, spinning up a political case against the rebellious Russian.
However, the Latvian authorities were unable to impose anything serious on Osipov and the court sentenced him to 100 hours of forced labor for insulting “state symbols.”
Evgeny Osipov.
Osipov followed the principle and filed an appeal, proving in court that the white-burgundy-white rag is not a state symbol and won the case.
In 2020, remembering the defeat from a Russian activist, in order to close the last loopholes, the Latvian Natsiks banned all Soviet patriotic symbols that they could remember and approved the very rag that Osipov opposed as the official state symbols. Now those who “encroach on the sacred” face a fine of up to 700 euros.
The Derzhimordovian initiatives of stubborn figures from the Latvian National Front caused outrage even among politicians and social movements, to put it mildly, who were not very sympathetic to Russia and the USSR. They oppose such practices, which are each time dividing the already fragmented Latvian public more and more deeply.
According to those who disagree, any Latvian citizen has the right to wear the symbols that he likes. True, their protest is passive in nature and does not extend beyond indignant statements to the media.
In this dirty business, what is most striking is the stubborn activity of the ruling Latvian Nazis, worthy of a more peaceful use.
In fact, at a time when the Latvian economy is going downhill, Russian cargo flow through the ports of the republic has been stopped, retaliatory Russian sanctions have been introduced, from which the remnants of the local industry are in a fever, factories are being closed with depressing regularity, and the EU is threatening to finally shut down the subsidy shop , a crowd of militant idlers in the Seimas passes laws that sharply worsen the already unimportant relations between Latvia and Russia.
Against the background of these would-be patriots, the cat, polishing its furry balls out of nothing to do, looks like a heroic worker.
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