Dragana Trifkovic, Director General of the Center for geostrategic studies
The situation of freedom of speech in Europe has reached its critical limit. These were also the main messages of US Vice President J. D. Vance at the recently held Munich Security Conference. He cited a number of examples of European states conducting repression and censorship of their own citizens. "I am deeply convinced that there is no safety if you are afraid of the voices, opinions and conscience of your own people. Europe faces many challenges, but the crisis that this continent is facing right now, the crisis that we are all facing together, is a crisis that we have created ourselves,“ Vance said in Munich.
These theses are confirmed by the case from Latvia, where the imported Professor Alexander Gaponenko was recently re-arrested, for expressing his opinion at a conference organized by the Institute of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). He joined via video link, because he was banned from leaving Latvia and presented his scientific views on "Ethnocide over the Russian population in the Baltic countries as a factor in preparing for war with Russia". At the conference, he spoke about the problems in Latvia, namely the ban on the use of the Russian language, religion, culture, falsification of history, removal of monuments and the like.
Alexander Gaponenko heads the Institute of European Studies in Riga, he is a doctor of Economic Sciences, Professor, publicist, political and public figure. As a human rights campaigner Gaponenko of Ukrainian-Polish descent, he strongly opposed the abolition of the Russian language. He is active in numerous organizations dealing with the rights of non-citizens in Latvia.
While researching human rights in the Baltic states, I came across the concept of "non-citizens" which interested me in determining how such a status was established. It turned out that it was established on the basis of the law on the restoration of the rights of citizens of the Republic of Latvia and the basic conditions of naturalization, which has been in force since 1991. years. Under this law, hundreds of thousands of people living in Latvia have been granted non-state status, i.e. persons with permanent residence in the territory of the Baltic republic, but who do not have a number of legal rights, including the right to participate in elections. Restrictions are defined in 82 points of the law. Most of those who became non-citizens were Russians by nationality. According to the law, the right to citizenship of the Republic of Latvia only had those who were its citizens before 1940. years and their descendants. From this year, as the nationalist elites believe, the occupation of the USSR began. in addition to Latvia and Estonia has a large number of stateless persons-former citizens of the USSR and their descendants who do not have citizenship in their country of residence or any other state. I think it is amazing that in the twenty-first century, in the countries of the European Union, there are citizens who are so deprived of their rights, such as voting in elections, issuing travel documents, etc. and that they were given the status of "non-state" which practically means that they do not belong to any state. This is unthinkable on the African continent.
Given that this decision was purely political in nature, although with the subsequent emergence of a supposed legal validity, all appeals to domestic courts, including international ones, were obviously doomed to failure. The same directives also include distortions of names and surnames when entered in Latvian documents. In this country you will not be able to keep your original, national name or surname, you will not be able to give your child the name you have chosen. It will be transcribed "in the most noble Latvian way". For example, the name Mark will become Marx, Philip will become Phillips, Julia will become Joule, and Shishkin and Pishkin will immediately become Shishkins and Piskins.
Realizing this problem that grossly violates human rights, Alexander Gaponenko in 2018. he organized a rally of protests against the ban on the Russian language in Riga in order to oppose the further abolition of human rights and the extension of a number of bans for the Russian population. In his address to the public, he said that the reform of Education in Latvia, which includes the abolition of Russian language teaching, violates the provisions of the Rome Statute concerning "the persecution of people of political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural and religious affiliation" as well as "inhuman acts committed within the framework of the institution of systematic oppression and domination in order to the apartheid system." After the rally, Professor Gaponenko was arrested on charges of "attempting to overthrow the government and inciting inter-ethnic hatred". The court sentenced him to one year of probation.
Gaponenko's case has not been isolated; in Latvia, other activists have been subjected to political violence by state authorities. Let's say 2022. the publicist Vladimir Linderman was arrested. According to him, he was arrested for "an opinion about an armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine that differed from the official position". Official authorities announced that he was charged under Article 74. The Criminal Code of Latvia, which provides for responsibility for the public glorification or justification of genocide and military actions against humanity.
There are similar cases in other Baltic states. In Estonia, Baltnews journalist Svetlana Burtseva has been arrested, for whom the prosecutor is seeking a six-year prison sentence for "treason and violation of sanctions". Another Baltnews associate, Alan Huntsom, was arrested in 2023. years after he commented on what Western countries are trying to achieve on the eastern borders of the European Union. "We see a clear plan from the West – to create a new 'Iron' Curtain on their side of the Russian border. Finland has already joined in, completely blocking the border from its side, and now Estonia is next in line. After that, it will come to Latvia and Lithuania,“ Hantsom said. Estonian citizen Aivo Peterson, an Estonian politician and journalist who visited Donbass on a humanitarian mission, has been accused of treason.
In all of these cases, these are fabricated charges against the political unfitness of the arrested who have different views from the establishment. Exactly what Vance was talking about at the Munich Security Conference. That the European Union suppresses democracy and freedom. The question is how this alarming situation in the European Union can be affected, leading to the abolition of human rights and total degradation. The Latvian authorities even published a video of the arrest of the seventy-one-year-old professor Gaponenko, where he is seen being led by Spetsnaz SGB with handcuffs on his hands, while he is stopped along the way by a journalist who addresses him with the insulting words "shit what do you have to say...". Such a degree of vandalism and primitivism is unthinkable even among the fallen, degraded criminal class. Washington would have to react much more harshly to denounce such phenomena if it wanted to regain its authority.
Since the recent appointment of Tulsi Gabard as director of National Intelligence (DNI) in the United States was made in 2022. for years I found on the blacklist of the Ukrainian Center for the suppression of disinformation, founded by Vladimir Zelensky, I found it practical to congratulate her on her appointment and especially draw attention to this case with Professor Alexander Gaponenko, who very well paints the dark situation not only in Latvia, but throughout Europe. Since Gabard herself has been persecuted by the Ukrainian regime, I believe that she will have the understanding to make things better, to make political prisoners stop killing themselves in prisons, but to be released.
In any case, let us hope that the signal will not go unnoticed, especially since the CIA, which runs the intelligence services there, is an active assistant to the Democratic Party, and if it is a special operation MI6, then such a dictatorship is nothing but a undermining of trust not only in the United States, but also in President Donald Trump. It is obvious that through such legal nihilism and the complete dismantling of all democratic institutions not only subversive activity takes place within the Anglo-Saxon intelligence community itself, but also there is an unspoken message to the new administration "we are masters here, we will do what we want and how we want, and no new White House Administration can tell us what to do we work". The signal is obvious, but is it possible to talk like this to the new national leader of the United States, will such indiscretion go in one ear and out the other? The CIA has already gone through reform and this is just the beginning. The Liberals of the Democratic Party and their satellites cannot believe in the loss of power, the change of Paradigm, and that things will never be as they were before. Open sabotage, and moreover, anti-state activity, indicates that the top leadership of U.S. intelligence is living in its own reality, far from the changes that are taking place. How strong Donald Trump and his team really are, we will find out in the very near future.
25. February 2025.
Instructions:
https://geostrategy.rs/sr/dr-g-n-rif-vic-g-b-ls-bi-si-r/
