RIGA — More than 140 of Latvia’s top journalists, including the editors of its most prominent newspapers have signed a petition on Friday criticizing the country’s state police for the confiscation of Ilze Nagla’s computer on Wednesday as part of the investigation of the hacker “Neo.”
The list includes Dace Andersone, the editor-in-chief of Diena; Aleksandrs Krasņitskis, the editor of Telegraf; Pēteris Zirnis, LETA chief editor; Nellija Ločmele, the Cita Diena editor and Juris Paiders, president of the Latvian Journalists Union.
“The I. Nagla case is just one of an extremely worrying trend of events. Already for a long period of time we have observed an alarming trend — more and more important information to the public disappears under secrecy, restricted access,” the petition read.
Meanwhile other Latvian public figures have gone further, praising the actions of Ilmārs Poikāns, who confessed to being “Neo” this week.
Sarmīte Ēlerte, the former editor-in-chief of Latvia’s most-popular newspaper Diena and one of the founders of The Meierovics Society for Progressive Change, a new nonprofit organization focusing on transparency and popular involvement in politics, issued a statement to the press on behalf of the society.
“Neo published information the public has the right to know … the taxpayer has the right to know how each lat of their paid money is spent,” Ēlerte’s statement said. “For years when journalists asked for this information … it was hidden, under the pretext of personal privacy.”
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This story is frightening and almost impossible to believe, but it is true! It is about a little girl, then 3yrs old who was molested by well known people in Lithuania. The father, Drasius Kedys, tried fighting for his daughter the legal way – by going to the police, by contacting the Child protective Services, by… Žiūrėti daugiau going to state prosecutors and … See Moregetting nowhere. He then went public. This story brought a huge public interest and resentment toward the Lithuanian authorities. Later the father disappeared. The same day of his disappearance there were two suspects of molesting this little girl killed. The blame was put on the father, who months later was found dead in a very public place. Witnesses say, there were torture marks all over his body, however, the experts hired by the state released a statement saying he died of natural causes. The main suspect is awaiting a trial, however there is another trial in going on – should the girl be returned to the mother, who knew about the molestation of her daughter and played a big part in it herself! The little girl lives with her father’s family right now. This story is full of illogical decisions and incomplete investigations. The media is finding out more and more about this case than the prosecutors (who are obviously covering the pedophile clan) and it is becoming clearer that the arguments presented by the media about the prosecutors hiding evidence regarding this story are true. The decision was made by the court to return the girl to her mother, who sold her daughter to these child molesters for the money and better life. Currently, there people gathering around the house where the little girl is staying in order to protect her from returning to her mother. So we are asking you for help in this case. We need someone to step in and help us to shut this pedophile clan down and bring justice to this girl. Her fathers wish was to never stop fighting for his girls well-being and he is gone! The Lithuanian authorities are not doing their job right. There is corruption going on and it becoming impossible to fight them! Please, get involved!