The building of the Seimas of Latvia. Photo credit: Sergey Alekseev / commons.wikimedia.org (CC BY 3.0)
The Latvian parliamentarians in the final, third reading supported the draft of a new law, which obliges local authorities to dismantle Soviet monuments in their territories. Voting took place on Thursday, June 16, TASS reports. The parliament clarified that the document allowed the demolition of the monument to the liberator soldier in Riga. The monuments must be demolished by November 15.
Until the end of July, Riga will determine what other monuments will be removed. The responsibility to dismantle Soviet monuments rests with local authorities.
The Russian Union of Latvia party is sure that official Riga wants to dehumanize the Russian-speaking inhabitants of Latvia, to make society stop seeing any positive qualities in them. On the Internet, in the print media, on television, hatred is awakened towards them. Russian-speaking residents of Latvia are compared to ''animals'', called ''aggressive invaders.''
The party recalls that the authorities have already put forward several proposals at once in order to finally get rid of the memory of the heroes who, at the cost of their lives, saved Latvia from the Nazis. In the battles for the liberation of Latvia, about 150,000 Soviet soldiers died.
Russkiy Mir
