Report written by Irmeli Krans, Detective Superintendent /Trainer of Police, The SwedishNationalPoliceAcademy in Solna

Report approved by Birgit Hansson, Director of the SwedishNationalPoliceAcademy in Solna

Report translated from Swedish by Māra Krēsliņa

A Pride Week was organized in Riga from Wednesday July 19 to Sunday July 23, 2006. The Pride was organized by the Latvian Mozaika, a newly-founded organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons (LGBT) and their friends. Taking into consideration the experience of the Pride event last year which was met with massive protests and incidents of violence, the Pride organization invited their friends from abroad to come and demonstrate their support by participating in the ”Friendship days - Riga Pride 2006” with the slogan ”Come to Riga - Make a difference”.

I was invited by the project group Fritt Fram (All Clear - An Equal collaboration about sexual orientation at work) to lead a seminar together with Arthur Thiry, chairman of Riks-Ekho, the Swedish National Ecumenical Organization for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Persons. We were to present the Fritt Fram project for which I have been responsible in the SwedishNationalPoliceAcademy and the Fritt Fram educational material, as well as talk about what is being done in Sweden against discrimination in workplaces on the basis of sexual orientation. Arthur was also invited to lead a Rainbow Service together with the openly homosexual Pastor Maris Sants in the Anglican Church of Riga on Saturday.

I travelled together with Captain Krister Fahlstedt, project leader for Fritt Fram in the Swedish Armed Forces and Daniel Hjalmarsson, project leader for Fritt Fram in the Municipality of Södertälje. Among the other Swedish guests were Jonas Hansson, Secretary of the RFSL (The Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights), a delegation of approx. 10 members of HBT-liberalerna (The Swedish Liberal Party’s LGBT organization), including Member of Swedish Parliament Martin Andreasson (The Swedish Liberal party), Malin Björns (the Green Party) and the psychologist Sune Innala who does research on homophobia and the emotional reactions of homophobes.

Pride 2005

The first Pride in the Latvian city of Riga was organized in the summer of 2005. When the approx. 50 participants quietly marched through town on a Saturday to a service in the Anglican Church they were met with violent protests. Thousands of demonstrators opposing Pride lined the streets and shouted words of abuse like “pederasts”. They threw tomatoes, eggs, stones and bottles at the participants. Opponents to the procession formed human chains and conducted sit-down strikes on the street to hinder the Pride participants. The police worked hard ordering the crowds to disperse and driving off the opponents blocking the road so that the procession could proceed. During the service opponents gathered around the Church to attack the worshippers leaving the Church after the service with stones, excrement and eggs.

Applying for permission for the Parade

Mozaika applied for permission to conduct the Parade through Riga on Saturday July 22. The Riga City Council denied the permit on Wednesday July 19. Thereafter the decision was to be reviewed by the Riga District Administrative Court and a decision would be reached by lunchtime Friday July 21. In 2005 the Riga City Council had rejected the Pride arrangers’ request to conduct a parade but the Riga District Administrative Court ruled that the city must re-issue the permit and it was hoped that the Court would repeal the Council’s decision this year as well.

Preceding Pride 2006

Before our visit on June 15 the Latvian Parliament voted against an amendment to the Labour Law which would have banned discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, as required by an EU Directive. The President showed her displeasure by sending back the amendment for reconsideration and by comparing the members of the Parliament who voted against the amendment to clowns.

This, and the application for permission for a Pride Parade through the city which was handed in to the Riga City Council in April, led to acrimonious debates in the Parliament. Demonstrators assembled outside the City Hall to influence the politicians not to allow the so-called “AIDS – Pride”. The protesters and politicians uttered deeply abusive statements clearly insinuating demoralization, illness, paedophilia, Satanism, pederasty etc. The Minister of the Interior Dzintars Jaundzeikars has actively used “hate speech”, and expressed his revulsion to homosexuals with the arguments mentioned above. He has signed a document which has circulated in the Parliament, a kind of protest list against homosexuals who are depicted as being a threat to society. He foreshadowed the police by saying that a Pride Parade through the city couldn’t be permitted because the police could not guarantee their safety. The Minister used inflammatory language and gave examples of situations which might occur, like throwing of eggs, excrement, etc. After the statements of the Minister of the Interior, the leadership of the Police Union made a statement confirming that they could not guarantee safety.

Because of the infected situation the Special Assignments Minister for Social Integration Karina Petersone invited the police, the organization No Pride and other extreme Christian groups as well as the Pride arrangers Mozaika for talks. The talks got out of hand because the Pride arrangers were so grossly abused that they did not even want to recount to us afterwards what had been said.

The seminar

Before the seminar we were given a briefing on the social and political situation in Latvia by our interpreter Mara Kreslina from the SwedishNationalDefenceCollege and I gained some insight into the situation for LGBT persons in the country. I realized that in the seminar we should concentrate on encouraging the participants, to inspire them and to provide them with arguments to give them strength to continue working for democracy.

The seminar was opened with a speech of welcome by a state secretary from the Ministry of Welfare upon which Arthur introduced the project Fritt Fram. We emphasized that changing attitudes and values is a long term project and said that even in Sweden people can still be discriminated against for their sexual orientation and even murdered in spite of the existing legislation. We rounded off with an open and very interesting discussion in which the Latvian participants accounted for the existing conditions and it was clear to me that a general intolerance prevails in the society. The participants informed us about employees of the US Embassy who had been assaulted in the city because of their skin colour and that a rabbi had been verbally abused and threatened because of his religion. Hate crimes are obviously a problem in the city. Latvian legislation includes the category hate crimes but the Latvians said that the police choose to categorize e.g. assault with hate motives as common assault because of the extra work involved in categorizing it as a hate crime.

The arranger of the workshop, Evita Gosa, expressed her disappointment at the low number of participants at the seminar, approx. 10 people, and attributed it to the atmosphere of hate in society which scared many participants away.

Meeting with the Special Assignments Minister for Social Integration

It turned out that an employee of the Special Assignments Ministry for Social Integration had participated in the seminar and suddenly we were invited to a meeting with the Minister an hour later. Also present at the meeting were members of EU Parliaments invited to the Pride, Amsterdam’s Deputy Mayor Tjeerd Herrema, other Swedish participants as well as the chairman of Mozaika Gaston Lacombe.

The Special Assignments Minister for Social Integration Karina Petersone, of the political party Latvia’s Way, which is in coalition with Latvia’s First Party, began by explaining that she had been minister for only 100 days and that she gladly cooperated with the newly-founded Mozaika. She presented a national program against intolerance in Latvia and said that they had arranged a seminar on May 17 for the mass media with the educational purpose of stopping them from spreading myths and stereotypical pictures of homosexuals. She had not been so informed about this question before, but she had spent the last two months trying to learn as much as possible about this question as she could, in her own words: she must believe in something before committing herself wholeheartedly. She affirmed that hate speeches against homosexuals were held in the Parliament and told us about the Lutheran and Orthodox Churches who excommunicate openly homosexual pastors and are against female pastors.

She also told us about the afore-mentioned meeting in which the leadership for the police had also participated. The police had assured her that there was no problem whatsoever in guarding the Pride Parade and that they could guarantee the safety of each and every participant. Resources were available, such as personnel and access to both helicopters and water cannons etc, but the question was at what cost should an operation like this be carried out?

The meeting and all of Friday was overshadowed by the nervous anticipation of the decision of the Riga District Administrative Court, which should have been announced by lunchtime. Would the Court repeal the Riga City Council’s July 19 ban of the Parade, as last year, or would they ratify the Council’s decision? Time ticked on and tensions increased.

The reception

After the meeting with the Minister we went to the Pride organisers’ reception in the Hotel Reval Latvija, which had suddenly become the venue after the intended close-by Hotel de Rome had declined to be the venue after receiving threats. The ambassadors of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany as well as representatives from the Scandinavian embassies - Sweden, Norway and Denmark - were amongst those present. Shortly before six o’clock Friday evening the outcome was announced. The Court had rejected the Pride organisers’ request to conduct a parade. The motivation was not made public, but would be announced on Monday. In connection with the decision it was also announced that the permit seekers had 20 days to appeal against the decision. Mozaika quickly decided to sue the state in the European Court of Human Rights for violation of human rights and decided to call a press conference the following day because of the decision. I was later informed that the basis for the announced decision was that the parade would be a serious threat to national security. Other reasons for the decision are classed as state secrets and therefore classified for five years.

While mingling that evening I received further information. Someone said that at the meeting with the leadership of the police the Police Commissioner had been obviously irritated about being questioned about the police’s ability to guarantee safety during a possible parade. He had made it very clear that the Latvian Police Force was loyal to Latvian legislation and thus to the state and had assured them that security was not a problem.

Laying of the wreath

Early Saturday a wreath was laid down for homosexuals murdered during World War II at a monument in a former concentration camp outside of town. After the wreath laying ceremony a service was held in the Anglican Church.

The press conference

I, Krister and Daniel went to the press conference held in the Mozaika office, which is in the same building as the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga. Krister and I were in uniform to show our support for Mozaika more clearly. The closer we got to the address, the more police there were standing on guard, the streets were lined with police and I tried to greet some of them but I was only met with unwelcoming gazes or averted eyes. Outside the address about ten police vans were lined up and the street was full of police from a special unit, probably their riot squad.

A large crowd of journalists had assembled in the office and Krister and I caused quite a stir in our uniforms and we were scrupulously documented on film. The Mozaika Board members Linda Freimane and Juris Lavrikovs participated in the press conference, as well as Sune Innala and the Spanish Member of European Parliament Raul Romeva i Rueda. Sophie In't Veld, Dutch Member of the European Parliament, was also supposed to participate but it was announced that unfortunately she had been delayed after the service because the Church was besieged by anti-Pride protesters.

During the press conference I received a text message from Arthur in which he wrote that he was stuck in the Church because an excrement-throwing mob was standing outside. After about an hour Maris and Arthur came to the press conference and I noticed that they looked harrowed. Soon I was to understand their despair only too well. A stench spread in the stuffy overheated room and the journalists began leaving one by one. Arthur said that they had had to leave the church running through a rain of excrement, eggs, etc., strenuously trying to evade the cascade.

Pastor Maris Sants was accompanied in his car by a woman who had taken her child with her in the hope that the protesters would hesitate to attack them since there was a child present. That was obviously too much to hope for. That evening the news channels cabled out pictures of the excrement-drenched woman and pastor.

At the press conference Romeva i Rueda criticized the Court’s decision and emphasized that he wasn’t there as a citizen of another country to tell Latvians how they should conduct their politics or to punish them with EU sanctions, but that he, just as the Latvians themselves, was an EU citizen, which entails certain obligations. In't Veld, who had arrived by now, said that the Court’s decision was in violation of the basic democratic values that Latvia accepted by joining the EU. She said that it wasn’t a Latvian internal affair, but that the decision was now a matter for the entire EU.

Outside the press conference the excrement-hurling mob had now gathered and Evita Gosa, who had to leave the press conference, requested a police escort to a car parked just outside to avoid being bombarded with excrement but was denied that, referring to the fact that no such explicit instructions had been given. The already previously attacked Pastor Maris Sants was also denied an escort.

After the press conference we were advised to not leave the building as the excrement-throwing mob had found their way there as well. After waiting awhile we were told that we could leave the building but we were urged by the police to hide away all rainbow flags and other signs that could identify us as Pride participants and which could provoke the mob. We were also told to ring 112 should an emergency arise. A Latvian woman said that that was pointless because, according to her experience, the police didn’t come to help anyway. When we came out the police had blocked the road to the right and a screaming mass stood there. We then chose to go to the left where there were neither police nor demonstrators. We made a detour back to the hotel and I was surprised that the police only guarded one direction. What if the antagonists had been intelligent enough to go around the block and meet us from the opposite direction?

Outside the hotel

Back at the hotel we changed to plain clothes and sat down in the open-air café to await the beginning of the meeting at 2 o’clock. Suddenly the police arrived and posted themselves in front of the entrance to the hotel, and there were a lot of them, they stood around a metre apart along the whole front of the hotel, about 30 metres in length. The riot squad arrived too and posted themselves a few metres away. I saw a man in a red T-shirt proclaiming ”Take a stand for marriage” go round among the police and taxi drivers to spread his antagonistic message. It looked like the taxi drivers were being urged not to pick up passengers from the hotel. Journalists and reporters began to gather with their cameras, recorders and microphones.

Because there were policemen standing by the hotel’s open-air café where we were sitting I tried to talk to a policeman but he refused to talk to me and referred me to a press secretary, despite the fact that I identified myself as a Swedish policewoman. He said that he spoke no English and when I asked if I could speak to an English-speaking colleague he again referred me to a press secretary. I even tried speaking in Russian but he persisted in referring me to a press secretary.

Evita is attacked

Evita Gosa went by with her wife and we began to talk with them. Two Latvian TV reporters became interested and asked to interview the couple. By that time around 20-30 journalists, approx. 30 police and hundreds of anti-Pride protesters had gathered outside the hotel. The demonstrators gathered extremely quickly, suddenly they were just there and thronging around us and right on top of us. They shouted hateful things at the women being interviewed and stood right next them, pushing themselves close up to their faces and screaming while the interview was being conducted. Because they were so loud even more journalists and demonstrators gathered around us. The women were surrounded by massive and terrifying aggression and a riot was just about to break out. From my scanty knowledge of Russian I could gather as much as that they didn’t think that their children should grow up in a society with homosexuals. The fiercely aggressive crowd chanted insults and threats of violence and there was clearly a risk of actual violence. Krister went to the nearest policeman who stood two steps away from us, in the midst of the crowd, and asked him to intervene but the policeman refused to. The situation abruptly got out of hand and Evita was attacked with a great slimy gob of spit that landed right on her face. She turned to me with the spit hanging over her left eye and dripping down her cheek. She was crying and she said – Now you see how Latvian democracy works.

Witnessing her anguish and powerlessness was horribly agonizing. Just then the Chief of the Police Task Force stepped up and yelled at us to go in the hotel. He made way for us through the masses and we escorted Evita and her wife into the hotel while the crowd continued screaming out its aggression and insults, such as “whore”. The Chief of the Police Task Force bawled us out and I got the impression that he was irritated at us for sitting in the hotel’s open-air café and, in his opinion, provoking people with our mere presence. I felt such anger and rage that Evita had been subjected to this enormous humiliation without the police intervening, instead he was blaming her, us, and was openly demonstrating his irritation. I felt so powerless, it was so sad that there was nothing in my power I could do.

In the hotel

Once in the hotel I in my naivety imagined that we were safe but soon discovered as we were going up the stairs to the second floor that the aggressive and hateful mob was all over the place screaming out their insults at everyone going up the stairs to participate in the meeting which had been arranged in place of the parade. It’s a miracle that no physical violence occurred. We can be grateful that our Latvian friends are forbearing and don’t flame up and resort to violence in spite of the horrendous abuse they must endure.

Up on the second floor the demonstrators now united with ”neo-nationalists” were plucking papers from the information table and deriding the material. Outside the crowd grew larger and they attacked the Pride participants by snatching flags from them and ripping them apart and spraying water in their faces. Accusations of sodomy and threats of violence could be heard. Leaflets about homo-fascists and gay dictatorships, interspersed with quotes from the Bible, were distributed. The demonstrators were women and men of all ages, they even had small children with them.

The meeting

Shortly after 2 o’clock our meeting began, with speeches, songs and breaks for music and exhortations to dance in an attempt to try to create a festive atmosphere in spite of everything.

The Deputy Mayor of AmsterdamTjeerd Herrema said that EU membership is no longer a smorgasbord where you can pick and choose what you like, but that it entails social norms, not just economic and legal ones. And suddenly there was an antagonist two meters away from the speaker glaring at him and grunting something incomprehensible to me, but his body language was clearly aggressive and he held a pipe, or something rolled up as a pipe, in his right hand, which was demonstratively crossed over his left arm. He was requested to leave the meeting and was still protesting escorted out by two hotel employees, no police were in sight.

Looking out from the second story window I observed a commotion outside the entrance to the hotel and it turned out to be a woman wildly waving about with an icon who had placed herself in front of a taxi that had picked up two customers from the hotel. She refused to let the car pass and finally the police went up to her and moved her away so that the car could leave. The other demonstrators threw themselves at the car and screamed.

The EU MPs spoke and kept on emphasizing basic democratic values. I presented myself briefly and delivered a greeting from the Swedish Minister for Democracy, Metropolitan Affairs, Integration and Gender Equality at the Ministry of Justice Jens Orback: “ Everyone’s love has the same value and everyone has the right to demonstrate it”. Cheers and applause ensued and it felt satisfying and meaningful to show Swedish support and to infuse the participants with optimism and show affirmation in spite of everything. The commitment and the witnessing of the events in Riga from abroad was highly valued. The fact that the world demonstrated its support and alienated itself from the undemocratic proceedings was invaluable.

Transport from the hotel

After the meeting the foreign guests were led out a back way through the kitchen by hotel personnel. After the EU MPs it was our turn, Krister’s, Daniel’s and mine. We came out into an inner courtyard and went out by a smaller door in the garage door. There was a car outside completely covered with muck with a driver provided by the hotel and we were asked to get in it. A man with a blue shirt approached us as he was shouting something incomprehensible at us and waving his hands. When we got into the back seat and the driver started backing out into the street a man in a white T-shirt ran up to the car and we heard a loud smack on the left back side window. We saw something messy running down the glass and assumed that the man had thrown an egg at the car, but judging by the noise on the window I conclude that he had also thrown a stone. We told the driver to lock the doors. He began driving us to a secret address where we were all to meet and eat dinner and he apologized that he had to drive past the front of the hotel. When we passed the hotel I saw that there were still hundreds of antagonists in front of the entrance and even in the park on the other side of the street and the atmosphere seemed very intense. The situation was still chaotic and we saw a single riot policeman standing on guard in the street, some others were visible indolently resting in the park.

The Andalusian Dog

We were taken to Berga Bazars, which is a whole block with several restaurants, shops, offices and even a hotel. We were told to go to a restaurant called “The Andalusian Dog” where tables had been reserved for us and while looking for the restaurant we met anti-Pride demonstrators in their T-shirts. Was that just a coincidence or did they know that we were gathering there? We changed places so that I was walking next to Daniel and Krister walked ahead of us so as not to attract attention and to not make it look like Krister and Daniel are a couple. We found the restaurant with the EU MPs already sitting in the open-air restaurant and the men in the red T-shirts disappeared. Between the restaurant itself and the open-air section was a passage made up of columns. On the other side of the open-air section was the drive for the hotel guests. All shook up we sat down at a table by one of the columns of the passage and soon afterward we were joined by the Swedish interpreter Mara Kreslina and the Latvian MC of the meeting Elita Drake. We relaxed and started ordering food and drinks.

One by one the anti-Pride demonstrators started coming into the courtyard, talking in walkie-talkies and mobile phones. They hid behind the columns and kept on coming in like rats through every hole and opening. After a half hour the place was full of them and an assembled group of them was trying to come in the entrance of the courtyard. Two local security guards were working themselves into a lather trying to get them to leave. Since there were so many ways of getting into the courtyard it was an impossible task. If they got two to leave, new ones would pop up from another direction and suddenly they were all over the place. Once again the situation became threatening and dangerous. We were sitting totally unprotected in the open-air restaurant and any second we could have somebody dangerous leaning over our shoulder. They were aggressively threatening and the situation was precarious.

I noticed a woman sitting at the table with the politicians and she kept on getting up and talking to the guards and bossing them about and I wondered who she was. I also saw her having discussions with the demonstrators who were trying to push past the guards. They were around 100 and we were around 20. Krister called 112 three times but every time he got through to the switchboard they disconnected him. He also called Joel Englund at the Swedish Embassy and described the situation and said that we didn’t feel safe because there were no police around. I felt compelled to call the Acting Director of the SwedishNational PoliceAcademy, Director of Studies Christer Nyberg, to ask him to help in any way possible.

It felt important for us Swedes to make it known that the situation was unacceptable. Krister could relatively quickly get in touch with the Swedish Police and Customs Liaison Office in Riga. When Krister didn’t succeed in getting help with the emergency number he gave his phone to Elita who got through to the switchboard and indignantly asked why they had kept on disconnecting us when we called and was told because they were getting so many calls from us.

Finally after half an hour of chaos the police arrived. The guards had worked very well and in a while the courtyard was cleared of the demonstrators, but to my amazement I saw them sauntering in again. Right past the police “on guard” at the entrance. The woman I had noticed earlier went up to them and said: ”I own this block and I don’t want you in my home.” On a different occasion she welcomed them in on condition they remove their ”ugly T-shirts”.

The T-shirts had a symbol of two stick figures having anal sex. Later on she presented herself to us and said that as a child she had been forced to flee Latvia with her parents and that she had grown up in the US. She had returned to Latvia when Latvia declared its independence again and is now the business manager of the premises in the block which had belonged to her family, which turned out to be all the buildings on the block. Right under the noses of the passive police it was she who did the job of the police by forcibly throwing out the demonstrators.

When things calmed down after the chaos Joel Englund came by to check out the situation. Joel had left a private party he had been invited to. I was contacted by the Customs and Police Liaison Officer Mikael Lindgren who knew these groups and their methods very well. He said that they were very well organized and extremely radical in their views. Lindgren gave me a mobile phone number where I could reach him and said I should call if the situation deteriorated and he offered to come and fetch us by car if so necessary. He said that he had also been in contact with the Swedish Embassy.

Besieged

Our friends the Board members of Mozaika who were still at the hotel informed us that they couldn’t come to the restaurant for a couple of hours because the hotel was barricaded by the anti-Pride demonstrators. After yet another while we got the message that they no longer dared divulge their whereabouts or other vital information over the phone because they suspected that they were being bugged. It was decided that we would find out where to meet in a few hours.

Somewhat later I got a text message from Arthur saying that the Mozaika Board and other friends had been sent to a hotel room and that the Prime Minister was on his way to the room. When the Acting Prime Minister, Minister for Economics Aigars Stokenbergs, came to the hotel he inquired how he could be of assistance and Linda Freimane said that they wished to leave the hotel in which they had been confined for several hours already. He made a call and promised that the problem would be solved. Shortly after that Linda received a call from her police contact who irritatedly said that the situation now was such, that the police could do nothing for them. Linda tried to explain that she had received information to the contrary from the Prime Minister but was brushed aside and then she chose to hand the phone over to Stokenbergs who had a short conversation with the police. Two minutes later they were informed that a bus with police escort was outside the hotel to transport them away. Finally our friends could reach safety after being deprived of freedom for several hours.

Stokenbergs also came to the restaurant ”The Andalusian Dog” to apologise on behalf of his country for what had occurred and to hear our testimony. By then the scene was calm and the demonstrators had left.

The conclusion of the evening

A few hours later, around eleven o’clock, we could all finally meet in a new restaurant and have a chance to be together. We exchanged experiences and began to get acquainted a little better. The tension started to subside and in the end we were all in high spirits. Unfortunately Mozaika decide to cancel Sunday’s press conference upon being advised by the police that it was too dangerous. We went to a gay bar, had a drink and were warmly welcomed by the owner. I noticed that two guards stood discretely in the background, they hadn’t been there the previous evening.

The death of Latvian democracy

That evening the TV news program Panorama featured a report of the laying of the wreath by the monument in the concentration camp to honour the murdered homosexuals. Subsequently a 30 second moment of silence was held to grieve “the death of democracy in Latvia”.

An analysis of the consequences of the performance of the police

One can wonder how significant it is that leading politicians stir up the nation with hate speeches against an already vulnerable minority. How much have the police been influenced by these speeches and the prevailing social climate? In the summer of 2005 the participants felt confident that the police would work professionally while they marched down the streets. What has happened since last year? Has the policeman as an individual been so influenced by the social climate that it affects his judgement and actions or has the leadership given explicit instructions to the Police Force not to intervene?

What is it about homosexuals that is so provoking? We were requested not to have visible rainbow flags or pennants. In this case the mob didn’t differentiate. Even other people were subjected to the same treatment; citizens, guests and tourists were besieged at the hotel and attacked outside the entrance and students and others leaving the Stockholm School of Economics were attacked with excrement. Are the coloured citizens or visitors told to hide their skin colour in intolerant Latvia? Are Jews advised to not wear symbols that could reveal their religious affiliation?

How could the police let the mob gather right in front of the hotel? And even get into the hotel lobby and come all the way up into our conference hall? Was that done on purpose?

Why was Mozaika dissuaded from holding a press conference? Is that not limiting the citizens’ democratic right to freedom of expression?

Of interest in this case is that when George W Bush visited Riga there was obviously no lack of resources. Federal employees were given two days off and were urged to leave the capital during the state visit. Several city blocks were cordoned off and the inhabitants had to request permission at the latest ten days in advance if they were planning to be in the area in question during the two day visit. The police coped with that task but not with protecting 100 peaceful participants in a Pride Parade. Will the police be up to the task of providing security during the impending NATO meeting in November?

Upon reflection

For me as a trainer at the SwedishNationalPoliceAcademy specifically responsible for teaching the subject hate crimes this has been an extraordinarily useful experience. To experience the intensive hate so close up and to feel the utter powerlessness in that situation has given me quite a lesson. I ask myself: how can I convey my experience to the students in the best possible way?

In conclusion

Is the rumour that an anti-democratic movement is financed by an established political party in office really true?

I urge the members of Mozaika to report all crimes against the participants to the police and to demand that they are categorized as hate crimes. From my point of view the motive is crystal clear. Homophobia and homo hate clearly reared their ugly heads on Saturday July 22 inRiga.

Our presence was hugely appreciated by the Pride arrangers and it felt important to participate and show our support for the Latvian LGBT movement. I really hope that we contributed to a change, that we were there with them and “ made a difference”.

Stockholm August 2006