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International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics Thursday, 18.04.2024, 10:16

Hackers continue to attack on-line edition of Latvian weekly newspaper ''Ir''

BC, Riga, 10.12.2014.Print version
The editor-in-chief of the respectable weekly news magazine ''Ir'' Nellija Locmele told LETA today that hackers continue to attack the on-line edition of the magazine.

Locmele called on the hackers to reveal themselves. ''We do not know who is doing this, but call on them to crawl out of their holes and show themselves,'' Locmele said.

 

She said that the cyber attacks began on Saturday, and have continued since then.

 

Locmele points out that one of the newspaper's recent feature stories was about the troubles Russian independent news television channel ''Doždj TV'' is currently encountering. But she denied that the initiators of the cyber attacks are certainly from Russia, as ''we have become a burden to enough persons right here in Latvia for troubling their dubious activities''.

 

For example, in recent months, articles printed in the "Ir" magazine about various illegalities during insolvency processes have caused a public outrage and triggered counteraction by several insolvency administrators – including Maris Spruds, and former insolvency administrator Aigars Lusis, who is now one of the leaders of All for Latvia!-For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK, who have both sued "Ir" for libel.

 

The ''Ir'' team is made up of many former journalists of the newspaper ''Diena'', once Latvia's largest and most respectable daily newspaper. They left the newspaper in 2009 after it was sold to new investors in a veil of secrecy and a new management team took over. The journalists said at the time that they felt that their editorial freedom was being stamped on, thus they could no longer work at the newspaper.

 

Meanwhile, the investigative news portal ''Pietiek.com'' reported in 2011 that the real owners of the newspaper Diena, at least at the moment Viesturs Koziols became the formal owner of the newspaper's controlling interest in the summer of 2010, were three of Latvia's so-called oligarchs Ainars Slesers, Andris Skele and Aivars Lembergs. This information based on the Corruption Prevention Bureau's findings during investigation into the so-called "oligarch case".

 

Corruption Prevention Bureau officers were tapping Slesers' phone and bugging his meetings with other people at "Ridzene" hotel for a lengthy period. As a result, information was obtained that Diena actually belongs to the three said politicians, whereas the official owners were mere managers for the three, via which Diena, as well as other enterprises, were run, ''Pietiek.com'' reported back in 2011.






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