freedom.lv

Enric Duran presents a new publication on the crisis and gets arrested

Enric Duran – Robin Bank presented a new publication on the crisis entitled “We can live without capitalism” (www.podem.com) and then was arrested in Barcelona.

Enric Duran is the Catalan activist that in September made public an action of bank disobedience. “I have “robbed” 492,000 euros to whom most rob us in order to denounce them and build some alternatives for the society”, he announced.

17 march 2009 around 18.00 h, the Catalan police forces, the mossos d’esquadra, arrested Enric Duran on the premises of the rectorate of the Barcelona University. The support group of Enric Duran severely reject the fact that police forces entered again in university premises, reviving the dictatorship past in the Spanish State.

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Fenced freedom

The Feedom Monument was partly fenced this monday (March 16) caused by fears of Riga city council that ommemorative march by former members of the Latvian Waffen SS (most of them were drafted during the German occupation of Latvia and fought against the Red Army) will cause clashes. Large numbers of riot police was located nearby the monument and in oldtown.

Previously several organizations applied to march or gather near the monument on March 16 but the Riga city council banned any gatherings near the Freedom Monument. An administrative district court in Latvia has upheld a ban rejecting appeals by three different groupings seeking to hold marches or rallies on this day. Though march to commemorate members of the World War II Latvian Legion and small counterdemonstrations took place despite a ban.

Read more on this topic:

• Riga city council suspends freedom of assembly on March 16
• Court upholds March 16 assembly ban
• Banned march takes place without incident

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Latvian torrent tracker “outlaw.lv” closed

It seems Economic police (EP) recently closed Latvian torrent tracker outlaw.lv. Website is closed down with announcement “Thanks to EP, tracker temporarily closed”.

In last August police closed another torrent tracker – file.lv.

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Latvians forbidden to drive foreign cars

Today Saeima (Parliament of Latvia) adopted amendments in Law on traffic forbidding residents of Latvia to drive vehicles  registered in other countries. Authors of these provisions stated they are needed because lot of residents of Latvia drive cars registred in neighbouring Lithuania, thus avoiding paying road tax in Latvia and sanctions (e.g. speeding tickets). Amendments are heavily criticized as inappropriate and restricting freedoms.

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Press freedom and restrictions in Latvia

Recently the Latvian Minister of Justice Gaidis Berzins from Fatherland & Freedom Party proposed drafting a law that would drastically restrict media coverage of criminal cases by forbidding the publication or quoting  of case evidence and other materials in case (based on leaked documents and materials made public by the accused). Fortunately parliamentary committee of Saeima (Parliament of Latvia) has rejected those proposals.

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Riots in Riga

Yesterday, peaceful meeting organzed by opposition party ended with riots. Riots started when official part of meeting ended and about 1000 protesters went down to Saeima (parliament of Latvia)  house nearby in Old Town Riga. With shouts of “Fire the Saeima” the protesters attempted to storm into the parliament building though unsuccessfully. Parliament was defended by military police. Later special forces joined them. Crowds clashes with police have about injured persons, including police officers. Many windows and two police cars were smashed.

Police and special forces used tear gas to thwart off the attack. Riots went on about hour until crowd was dispersed. More than 100 protesters got arrested. Read the rest of this entry »

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Open day in public institutions

On September 19 the State Chancellery organizes Open day in public institutions. On this day different public institutions will be open for public. Excursions, exhibitions, seminars, presentations and meetings will be organized.

Institutions involved: Chancery of the President, Parliament, Cabinet of Ministers and The State Chancellery, and Ministries.

This day is good opportunity to see public institutions at work.

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Rebooting America

The Personal Democracy Forum presented book "Rebooting America". It is an anthology of forty-four essays on ideas of of reenergizing, reorganizing, and reorienting our government for the Internet Age.

Download the entire anthology, or buy the book!

Posted in E-governance, Internet, Law | No Comments »

Latvian torrent tracker closed by police

Few days ago one of largest torrent trackers in Latvia file.lv was closed by police. Police seized about 40 servers and arrested two persons – server administrators and owners. They are accused in breach of copyright and illegal distribution of copyrighted material. If found guilty they can face large or even imprisonment. Police also opened criminal cases against some biggest uploaders.

Posted in Copyrights, Events, Law, Software | 3 Comments »

Referendum on peoples rights to dissolute Parliament fails

On Saturday, August 2, Latvia hold a referendum on amendments to the Constitution to give people the right to dissolve Parliament. To pass, the referendum needed 757,607 “yes” votes or half the voting population. Though referendum failed to win enough support. Only 560,000 Latvians or about 43% of Latvia’s 1.5 million eligible voters took part (in total 40% of the electors casting "yes" ballots and 3% casting "no" ballots).

More info:

Latvian referendum fails to gather enough votes
Latvia referendum to amend constitution fails for lack of votes

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