On February 6th Tatjana Andrijec, a young human rights defender, was detained in Riga. Her only guilt is her determination to stay Russian which is regarded now as a reason to put her behind bars (see the Latvian Russian Union board statement on the arrest of Tatjana Andrijec https://rusojuz.lv/en/repressions-against-tatjana-andrijec-are-outrageous-and-they-undermine-latvias-future/ ). Two days after the court ruled to keep the young woman in prison as a measure of remand custody. On February 28 the appeal court uphold this decision.
The Latvian press launched a very strong denunciation campaign against Tatjana immediately after her arrest. This documentary lets you know the real Tatjana, the Tatjana we know.
Meanwhile, it became known that Tatjana was permitted to meet her mother Vera. The meeting lasted for an hour. Vera had been worried with the news that Tatjana had caught a cold but by the time of the meeting Tatjana has recovered. Vera tells that her daughter was trying to calm her down. Tatjana looks cheerful and full of hopes. She is completely innocent of any wrongdoing. Otherwise, she would not ever decide to spend her vacation in Latvia coming from Russia where she studies at the university.
Tatjana also told that she is permitted to have a walk in the prison inner yard which lasts for an hour. She is also permitted to visit a gym. Tatjana tells that she has been receiving a lot of letters and postcards not only from Latvia but from as far as Kazakhstan.
Tatjana’s first public appearance as a human rights defender happened on March 2, 2018 when she was a 12th grade student of the school with Latvian language of instruction. It was her own decision to move to this school from Russian language school as she wanted to get a really good command of the state language. That day in 2018 the Latvian parliament organised a conference on the education in Latvia to which Tatjana was invited as a speaker. The organizers wanted to present Tatjana as an ideal result of the school reforms leading to assimilation. Tatjana spoke against it. As of that time, she was just a schoolgirl who was not a member of any political organisation. Her dream was to become a doctor, and she played a violin in the youth orchestra. Tatjana spoke up against the reforms to defend other children, also the ones who do not have such brilliant skills. She was the only school pupil speaking at that conference and she spoke against reforms aimed at annihilation of the education in a native language.
In one of the letters to her mother Tatjana writes, ”Mother, do not worry. I will be released soon. My conscience is clear. I have not done anything wrong. They can not deprive me of liberty by keeping behind bars as my freedom is inside me”.
