Baltic News Service, Latvia
October 30, 2008 Thursday 11:55 PM EET

FOUR SKINHEADS MIGHT FACE TEN-YEAR JAIL TERMS FOR BEATING ROMAS,
ARMENIANS IN RIGA

RIGA Oct 30

The Riga court district prosecutor’s office has just handed the Riga
Regional Court a criminal case brining charges against four supporters
of skinhead movement for beating Romas and Armenians in Riga.

The prosecutor’s office press service said that the 19-22 years old
youths have been accused of incitement of race hatred if it is related
with violence or threat and done in a group of persons. Such a crime
carries a jail term of ten years.

The State Police in cooperation with the Security Police in February
detained a group of skinheads. The investigation showed that in the
fall of 2007 they battered two 14-15 years old Roma girls in Riga due
to racial motives.

According to the testimony of the mother of one of the girls at the
integration minister’s secretariat, the girls were heading to a shop,
when they met youths looking like skinheads at the tram stop. When
they returned from the shop, the youths seen at the tram stop attacked
them, kicked them into their faces and used metal objects to beat
them. Then the youths ran away.

Similar beatings took place in February this year, when the youths
with the shouts "beat the blacks" assaulted two Armenians.

In both cases assaults had been done due to racial motives.

The Security Police initially defined the crime against the girls as
hooliganism. Latvian Ombudsman’s Office claimed that the girls were
battered for their ethnic origin. Relatives of the victims also
reproached the police for passivity, not detaining the assaulters
immediately.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress