THE LATVIAN RUSSIAN UNION BOARD STATEMENT
The Latvian Russian Union expresses protest against the arrest of our comrade Tatjana Andrijec. The State Security Service of Latvia (Valsts drošības dienests, VDD) have arrested Tatjana and announced the launch of the investigation into her alleged role in the operations of several TG-channels which, from the point of view of the VDD, operate in the interests of Russia and against the interests of Ukraine and Latvia. We are certain that these suspicions can not be taken as reasons for such hard measures as searches and arrests as the VDD undertook against Tatjana Andrijec.
When Tatjana left for Russia to continue her studies at the university, she, in fact, froze her participation in the public life of Latvia. However, in a few previous years she demonstrated her principled and couragerous stance in defence of common people’s interests. We assume that the everything which has happened to Tatjana now is a delayed revenge for her participation in events carried out to protect monuments dating to the Soviet period as well as education in the mother tongue in Russian-language schools of Latvia.
Besides, we take everything that has been going on in relation to Tatjana an attempts to collect some kind of compromising evidence against our party as we represent the Russian-speaking minority of Latvia. This is what the most conservative and intolerant fraction of the Latvian electorate is demanding from the authorities. We see these attempts as self-promotion aimed at ensuring that the funds allocated to support the special services increase in the period when a new state budget is being considered.
Instead of spending resources to integrate talented young people into the social life of the Republic of Latvia, the authorities are being spent to intimidate people and push young people to emigrate. It’s a dead end road! Latvia will have no future without young, caring public figures!
