EU – Baltic States, History, Latvia
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Friday, 26.04.2024, 16:05
Latvia’s Saeima in second reading supports publishing KGB documents in 2018
The amendments were supported by 63 lawmakers from all parliament
factions, there were no votes against and no abstentions. Some Harmony lawmakers, Aivars Meija
from the Harmony faction and Gunars
Kutris from the faction of the Union
of Greens and Farmers, as well as Arvids Platpers from the Latvian Alliance of Regions, Inguna
Ribena (National Alliance) and Andris
Silins (Greens/Farmers) did not
participate in the vote.
The parliament will have to vote on the amendments in the third reading
which will take place before the upcoming parliament elections on October 6, 2018,
and the president still has to promulgate the amendments.
The published documents will include phone catalogues, listing KGB
employees, and card index, listing outside collaborators. The information will
be published in the internet website of the Latvian National Archives.
Starting from May 1, 2019, also other KGB documents will be published.
About three weeks will be needed to digitalize about 10,000 cards that will be published this year. Four months will be needed to develop a system that will allow digital search in the documents.
The possibility of releasing information from KGB files that were left
behind in Latvia after the Baltic state restored its independence from the
Soviet Union in 1990 has been discussed in Latvia at regular intervals during
the past years with some arguing that the former KGB agents should be exposed
and others questioning the authenticity of the documents and information
contained in them.