Today the Latvian Parliament approved Dainis Turlais, MP, to be included as a member of the Latvian delegation within the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Dainis Turlais is a member of the First Party of Latvia which was one of the main initiator and locomotion behind the extreme homophobic campaign last year prior and during the first LGBT Pride March in Riga.

Just days before the First Party of Latvia hold its annual congress and during his speech Dainis Turlais came out with extreme homophobic statements saying that ‘we cannot hide in the bushes while all possible skunk and faggots are walking on the streets’.

One of the main duties of the OSCE is to supervise the observation of human rights, basic freedoms and minority rights, promoting tolerance in the 55 member states of the organisation. The First Party of Latvia apparently believes that the best man for this job is a man who foments hatred, who nearly calls for violence against socially alienated people and homosexuals, who, as the historian Aivars Stranga has noted with great precision, "speaks the language of the Nazis." Turlais’ statement was condemned by a number of human rights activists and some clergy.