The first attempt to amend the Criminal Law so that one small group of society gains a monopoly on the use of hate speech and censorship of different opinions has initially been thwarted. This is a small victory in guarding the freedom of speech and Latvian democracy.
Amendments to the Criminal Law submitted by Andrejs Judins, a member of the Unity (Vienotība) party, have been rejected by the Saeima Criminal Law Policy Subcommittee. But almost identical proposals are coming up. Using the moment when the Criminal Law was opened to amend completely different articles - not related to hate crimes - Judins hurried with his proposals even before the party association Development/For! (Attīstībai/Par!) submitted its own. Neatkarīgā wrote about them in the publication "Criminal Law might be changed to threaten free speech in Latvia."
Judins' proposals were submitted earlier and immediately for consideration in the second reading of the draft law. However, the attempt failed.
It should be recalled that the intention of the liberal parties through such amendments is to attract the electorate of homosexual people and their supporters to the specific parties. It is not for nothing that Kaspars Zālītis, a representative of Latvia's most influential LGBT lobbying organization Mozaika, was invited to campaign for the approval of the draft law in the subcommittee. However, even with him, Andrejs Judins was unable to convince the majority of deputies that LGBT interests should be specifically highlighted in the Criminal Law. The essence of his proposals was, firstly, to abolish the criterion of "substantial harm", so that the police should also initiate criminal proceedings at the request of the applicant even for someone expressing a critical opinion concerning sexual minorities. And anecdotes or childish name-calling. And in two more paragraphs, Judins calls for special emphasis to be placed on hate crimes related to sexual orientation.
Conservative MP Juris Rancāns argued at the meeting that such a special mention of sexual orientation in the law is not necessary, because in a year's time the interests of another social group might cause a wide resonance in society, and there is no possibility or need to write every possible option into the law. The existing regulation is already perfectly sufficient and good, as it allows any kind of hate speech and any kind of discrimination to be tackled with the utmost severity of the law. Section 150 of the Law on “Incitement of Social Hatred and Enmity” contains the following remark - “or any other characteristics.” So even now, the law does not consider any kind of social hatred towards any group to be less important. Any social hatred is an aggravating circumstance. In turn, the proposed amendments would directly lead to a situation where LGBT ideologues could bring to court others for having opinions they dislike. The name of Sandra Veinberga, a Latvian journalist living in Sweden, was used as a clear example at the meeting.
Veinberga, who studied propaganda and journalism in Moscow, gave a long hate speech against conservative politicians and the church a week ago. In the publication entitled "Latvian politicians and the church must take responsibility for the murder attempt in Tukums." Theoretically, politicians and priests have the opportunity to hold Veinberga liable. Request that criminal proceedings be started against her. And the police could then assess whether and how much damage Veinberga's published hatred has caused to someone. On the other hand, if LGBT lobbyists had incorporated the amendments to the Criminal Law, any discussion involving sexual minorities could end with the person in prison. And not Veinberga, but politicians and priests, which Veinberga was hostile to.
In response to the proposals already submitted by the deputy Judins to the Criminal Law and those written by the Development/For! deputies, a working group of the Ministry of Justice has submitted its more moderate version. However, they also did not receive support in the Criminal Law Policy Subcommittee. However, the Legal Affairs Committee and consideration at the Saeima sittings are still ahead. And if these proposals do not go through, then everything will start again with the Development/For! proposals. The LGBT lobby is influential and demands special advantages in the Saeima, the Criminal Law and the Constitution.
It will soon become clear whether and to what extent freedom of speech in Latvia will be restricted to grant privileges to one small group of society.