The Daugavas Vanagi organisation, the Vilki association, the “Everything for Latvia” political party, the “Patriotic Rearing and MilitaryCloseCombatSchool” and the Club 415 organisation of Latvian nationalists say that the decisive battle over Latvian independence was fought on the banks of the DaugavaRiver – the place which we now know as 11th November Shoreline.

In its announcement, the organisations say that specific values are at the foundation of the state. The establishment and short-term existence of the Latvian state, they say, was related to self-denial, sacrifice and victims. Among the main symbols of these battles were the Freedom Battles and Lāčplēsis Day, November 11.

“In this context, it is completely unacceptable to us as nationalist Latvians that on May 31 of this year, one of the central symbols of Latvian statehood and national self-understanding – the 11th November Shoreline – will be used by minorities of sexual inclinations to propagandise their absolutely unhealthy views and amoral way of life,” says the announcement from the organisations.

This year Latvia will celebrate the 90th anniversary of its declaration of independence. Holding a parade of people who are sexually disoriented in a place where a parade of the country’s military forces will take place a few months later represents open mockery of values which most Latvians hold holy, the organisations insist.

They suggest that the Rīga City Council take into account Section 116 of the Latvian Constitution, which allows limitations on human rights so as to protect security, order and morality, and either reject the event or choose a different location that would be more appropriate for the nature of the event.

This, say the organisations, would be a forest on the edge of the city, an abandoned industrial zone, or Victory Park, which is where each year, on May 9, Soviet army veterans and their supporters – those who committed to the most massive sexual crimes of rape in modern history – gather together.