Violent protests over the financial crisis in Riga

Demonstrators in Riga have hurled paving stones at the parliament and inflicted huge damages in the centre of the city in anger at the repercussions of the international financial crisis in Latvia. Latvijas Avize newspaper is shocked: "January 13 will go down in Latvian history, because not even during the struggle for independence did Latvians resort to violence in presenting their views. And they have always proved immune to provocation. But now it has happened, and even if it sounds banal: we have crossed a threshhold comparable to 9/11 in the United States. Just as the the authorities in Washington did not take warnings seriously back then, we too ignored information about potential provocations. And our government now has a pretext to tighten the thumbscrews, which means restricting democracy and the recourse to political action."

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