Charges raised against scandalous Latvian blogger for invitation to «liquidate the Chinese»

Latvian office of the prosecutor has raised charges to Niks Endziņš for his publicly voiced invitation to exterminate people of a specific nationality, as reported by LETA.

Charges were raised in accordance with Part 2 of Section 78 and Part 1 of Section 231 of the Criminal Law – for triggering national, ethnic and racial hatred using automated data processing system and hooliganism.

At the beginning of the year Endziņš caught the eye of law enforcers with a video in which he invited «liquidating the Chinese».

Latvian State Security Service (VDD), which was previously in charge of the investigation, reported that the suspect published a video on their Facebook page on 30 January in which they invited other people to exterminate people of a specific nationality. On top of that, the suspect claimed in the same video that the first COVID-19 case had been found in Latvia, which was not true at the time of the video’s publication. According to VDD, with this action the suspect caused anxiety and shock among residents and interfered with the work done by disease prevention and monitoring institutions.

Considering the aforementioned facts, VDD also added Part 1 of Section 231 of the Criminal Law on top of original charges.

As previously reported, at the beginning of April Endziņš was released from custody. Initially Endziņš was detained and his case was handled by State Police, but was later handed over to VDD.

State Police’s previously released press-statement mentions that a 1997-born man was arrested on 31 January for incitement of ethnic hatred on social media.

The public statement released by State Police mentions, without revealing the person’s name, that officers of State Police Main Criminal Police Office detained a 1997-born man for inciting national and ethnic hate.

The detained person had published a video on his social network profile. This video caused a major public resonance. The man was later put under arrest. The Criminal Procedure Law allows Endziņš to appeal the security measure in Riga Regional Court.

State Police report that together with colleagues from Cyber Crimes Enforcement Unity they had performed monitoring on social media and found a video published by some man. This video contained false information that incited ethnic hatred. A criminal process was initiated in accordance with Part 2 of Section 78 of the Criminal Law.

The aforementioned video depicted Endziņš, who claimed that a person infected with the new coronavirus has entered Latvia. He also mentioned in the video that «generally those Chinese [censored] should be liquidated, the entire country should be. Nothing good ever comes from there». The video has since been taken down.

Law enforcers determined the home address of the author of the video. The man was promptly arrested when police arrived there. Searches were also performed in the person’s home. Multiple pieces of evidence were confiscated – data storage devices, computers, mobile telephones and hard drive disks.

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