On April 23 of this year, Latvian society was shocked by horrific news: in Tukums, homophobes overwhelmed by bestial hatred found and set on fire a homosexual person in the middle of the night in the stairwell of the victim's house.
The LGBT+ community umbrella organization Mozaīka spread a message on social networks, which was decorated with giant exclamation marks and repeated words - HATRED!!! HATRED!!! HATRED!!!
The highest officials of our country - the President of Latvia Egils Levits and the Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš - also posted their view of the situation on Twitter, in which what happened was called a crime. Indirectly, but quite clearly, this "crime" was linked to homophobic hatred and discrimination. It was in this context that it gained a wide international profile, causing damage to Latvia's reputation that will be difficult to wash off.
Naidam Latvijā nav vietas. Ja apstiprināsies, ka Tukuma noziedznieka motivācija ir bijusi naids pret kādu sabiedrības daļu, tad tas pastiprina viņa vainu. Latvijas sabiedrības vērtība ir iecietība, un šāda naida izpausme vienlaikus ir noziegums pret sabiedrību.
— Egils Levits (@valstsgriba) April 24, 2021
"There is no place for hatred in Latvia. If it is confirmed that the motivation of the criminal in Tukums has been hatred towards a part of the society, then it increases his guilt. The strength of Latvian society is tolerance, and such an expression of hatred is at the same time a crime against society."
The police have now completed an extensive investigation into the incident, and it has been conclusively proven that there has been no crime at all. Neither hate nor domestic, none. This was noticeable to a careful, unprejudiced observer from the very beginning, when for more than 24 hours all public information about this "hate crime" came from only one source - the victim's friend and alleged witness. It seemed as if neither he nor the victim, who was still alive, gave any, absolutely any information about the mystical "hate attacker." Not even whether it was a man, a woman, young, old, Latvian or Russian speaking. Nothing to suspect that this "arsonist" exists in at all.
This conspicuous information hole, as well as the unusual nature of the "crime" itself - a person was expected at half past four in the morning in the stairwell to set him on fire in cold blood - literally screamed for the slightest evidence from other sources. However, no new information appeared for a long time. Over and over again, the original version was retold again, which might look convincing in a B movie, but was quite questionable in real life. Of course, this does not mean that such a crime would not be possible, but its many illogicalities have created the preconditions for treating its initial interpretation with caution.
One can understand the reaction of members of the LGBT+ community and their supporters who were driving this wave of hatred. They were emotionally charged, personally invested and unable to look unemotionally at what was happening. Moreover, they had almost no chance to establish the facts from first-hand sources. They had to rely on publicly available information, which was extremely one-sided. Therefore, their reaction can be partially justified. It is another thing that now, perhaps, they could admit that they made a mistake and with their haste caused significant damage to Latvia's prestige.
However, the reaction of the two top officials of our country should be evaluated much more rigorously. It can be assumed that for them, as for any human being, descriptions of such crimes cause natural disgust and counterreaction. But they are not "any other people." First, they need to control and manage their emotions. An impulsive and hasty reaction to various irritations is not a characteristic of a good statesman. However, this is not the main thing in this case either. They both have a large enough apparatus to obtain additional information from first-hand sources.
There is no doubt that both of these officials would in any other case request such information and obtain it without much delay. But this time it was not done. At least I would like to think so, because if information had been requested and received, but these politically charged texts, which undermine the prestige of the Latvian state, would have followed, it would show our two leaders in an even worse light. That by trying to please the world's influential LGBT+ lobby, our leaders spit on the image of their country. The main thing is the image of themselves, and the opportunity to show themselves as friendly for this lobby.
However, even in the other case, if such information was not requested and tweets condemning the "hate crime" were written without obtaining additional information, then these posts do not show them both in a good light. This means that our country is ruled by two irresponsible jesters. Liars and misinformers, for whom, regardless of what actually happened in Tukums, it was important to position themselves "correctly" in the eyes of an influential lobby. In both cases, both Levits and Kariņš look pretty bad.
Latvia has a low coverage of vaccination and one of the reasons for this low coverage is considered to be low trust in power. But how can you trust in power if the very highest officials of this power suffer from verbal incontinence? It is one thing for various professors to recklessly toss insults and discredit the name of science that was once so revered but is now beaten down to the level of prostitutes, but quite another when the titles of the President and Prime Minister are discredited through irresponsible babbling. Unfortunately, both Kariņš and Levits have not only not been unable to carry these difficult positions with dignity, but have not even been able to keep them from falling in the mud.
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