On January 20, a monument to the Latvian freedom fighter and Soviet-era dissident Gunārs Astra, by sculptor Gļebs Panteļejevs, was unveiled in Baumanis Square in front of the Riga Regional Court.
During the speeches by the President of Latvia Egils Levits and the Minister of Justice Jānis Bordāns, several people in the audience showed their displeasure by booing and whistling. Some of these people were known opponents of vaccination, who are currently banned from gathering under the state of emergency and face fines for gathering. It is in pretty bad taste to disrupt an event. It's not very nice. But it is also understandable if there is no other way and no other place to express oneself. And vaccinations alone are hardly the cause of anger - the government's splurging of money which there now is more than there has never been, its failure to help with the energy crisis, the way it forgot about the promises made to medics and teachers and other misdeeds of the current ruling establishment could also be to blame.
The boos for Bordāns were accompanied by anger that he is proposing a maximum penalty of up to a few years in prison for gross disturbance of the peace by spreading false news under the Criminal Law. The proposal was taken up by the Saeima Criminal Law Policy Subcommittee on January 18. The parallels are immediately apparent - Gunārs Astra was also a "false news spreader" who was convicted of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. But now Bordāns, the government, the ruling coalition are going to pretend to be truth-tellers in the highest instance, and those who express false news will be thrown in jail.
In the Latvijas Televīzija program “Panorāma”, a woman was seen whistling while Ieva Akurātere was singing "Help, God, the Latvian people." It wasn't quite like that. It was a fake, for which Iļja Kozins even apologized to viewers on his Twitter account. "About my 'Panorāma' story yesterday. I got carried away with the artistic presentation of the story. It was a mistake to edit a picture of a whistler with a song by I. Akurātere. Although I had no such intention, I have distorted reality, which is against the standards of my profession. Please forgive me!"
Par manu vakardienas sižetu "Panorāmā". Aizrāvos ar sižeta māksliniecisko noformējumu. Tā bija kļūda montēt svilpēju bildi ar I. Akurāteres dziesmu. Kaut arī man nebija tāda nodoma, es tomēr esmu sagrozījis realitāti, kas ir pret manas profesijas standartiem. Lūdzu, atvainojiet!
— Iļja Kozins (@ilya_kozin) January 21, 2022
But why boo Levits? What did he do wrong? He made a very correct speech, praising a freedom fighter who gave his life for Latvia.
There was one problem. The President of the Republic of Latvia did not remove his black hat during the national anthem and all the time afterwards. Even a thrice-vaccinated, law-abiding citizen with a QR code in his pocket and an FFP2 respirator on his nose would hardly understand why Egils Levits did not take off his hat.
Section 5 of the Law on the Latvian National Anthem is clear and precise: "During the performance of the National Anthem of Latvia at public events the persons present shall be upstanding, males shall remove their hats, but persons in State uniforms shall act according to service regulations."
The unveiling of the monument to Gunārs Astra was a public event. It was not a private party on Downing Street!
The weather was not too cold on January 20 - the storm had already blown away and the snow had not yet piled up. There was no real reason to be afraid of freezing your head. But even if it had been minus 35 degrees Celsius, you could have gone without a hat for the two minutes of the anthem.
Regardless of the law, the removal of the head covering is a centuries-old tradition for men.
After the unveiling of the Gunārs Astra monument, there was another event at the Freedom Monument, commemorating the 1991 barricades and the victims of January 20. The President of Latvia laid a wreath of flowers at the monument, bowed, but again did not remove the hat.
It is difficult to understand what this means. Perhaps the President forgot that the hat should be removed? Was there no adviser to whisper a reminder in his ear?
I would like to believe that he forgot, because if Egils Levits did not take his hat off deliberately and on principle, then one has to wonder what he is trying to demonstrate.
Perhaps he got the wrong nation with a Soviet legacy, for whose country he is working as President? Then there really is no need to show respect for the anthem, the flag or the monuments. But then, perhaps he should not torture himself so, because he might as well resign and give his place in the palace to someone else.