RIGA, Latvia (JTA) — Police arrested a man for displaying a poster of soldiers killing Jews at the annual march by local veterans of two SS divisions that made up the Latvian Legion during World War II.

The man was arrested Friday morning on the margins of the annual march of the Remembrance Day of the Latvian Legionnaires — soldiers from the 15th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS and the 19th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (the 1st and 2nd Latvian, respectively). A handful of veterans, flanked by hundreds of supporters waving Latvian flags, gathered around Freedom Monument for the march under heavy police guard.

The march in Latvia, a member of the NATO alliance and the European Union, is currently the only public event in Europe and beyond honoring people who fought under the banner of SS, Nazi Germany’s elite security force. Occurring amid rising tensions with Russia, it is part of numerous expressions across Eastern Europe of admiration for those, including Holocaust perpetrators, who collaborated with Germany against the Soviet Union.

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In Latvia, attending the world's only SS veterans march Posted by JTA News on Friday, 16 March 2018

Several protesters from the Latvia Without Fascism group demonstrated against the event by carrying signs reading “They fought for Hitler” and “If they looked Nazis, and acted like Nazis – they were Nazi.” None of those protesters was arrested.

Police did not allow a counter protest by Latvia Without Fascism, Joseph Koren, a leader of that group, told JTA. Hundreds of police cordoned off the Freedom Monument, as veterans, some of them wearing uniform, sang patriotic songs and laid wreaths for their fallen comrades. Organizers of the event from several nationalist groups then drove the veterans to a cemetery where many of their comrades are buried.

“It’s a disgrace that this is happening in Europe,” Aleksejs Saripovs of the Latvia Without Fascism group told JTA. “The European Union needs to pressure Latvia into abandoning this shameful event, but so far there is total silence.”

Many locals offered flowers to the veterans as they marched from the area around Riga’s St. Peter’s Church to the Freedom Monument.

Advocates of the veterans and their supporters claim that Latvian Legion soldiers were not involved in atrocities against Jews, despite evidence to the contrary. According to the Latvian government, the Latvian Legion was not really an SS unit and that the legionnaires who weren’t forcefully conscripted merely sought independence for Latvia when they joined Hitler’s army.

German Nazis and collaborators led to the near annihilation of 70,000 Jews who had lived in Latvia before the Holocaust.

On Wednesday, a bill proposing to make March 16 a national Latvian Legion Day was defeated in Latvia’s parliament.</s>RIGA, Latvia (JTA) — Police arrested a man for displaying a poster of soldiers killing Jews at the annual march by local veterans of two SS divisions that made up the Latvian Legion during World War II.

The man was arrested Friday morning on the margins of the annual march of the Remembrance Day of the Latvian Legionnaires — soldiers from the 15th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS and the 19th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (the 1st and 2nd Latvian, respectively). A handful of veterans, flanked by hundreds of supporters waving Latvian flags, gathered around Freedom Monument for the march under heavy police guard.

The march in Latvia, a member of the NATO alliance and the European Union, is currently the only public event in Europe and beyond honoring those who fought under the banner of SS, Nazi Germany’s elite security force. Occurring amid rising tensions with Russia, it is part of numerous expressions across Eastern Europe of admiration for those, including Holocaust perpetrators, who collaborated with Germany against the Soviet Union.

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Several protesters from the Latvia Without Fascism group demonstrated against the event by carrying signs reading “They fought for Hitler” and “If they looked like Nazis, and acted like Nazis – they were Nazi.” None of those protesters was arrested.

Police did not allow a counter protest by Latvia Without Fascism, a leader of that group, Joseph Koren, told JTA. Hundreds of police cordoned off the Freedom Monument as veterans, including some in uniform, sang patriotic songs and laid wreaths for their fallen comrades. Organizers of the event from several nationalist groups then drove the veterans to a cemetery where many of their comrades are buried.

“It’s a disgrace that this is happening in Europe,” Aleksejs Saripovs of the Latvia Without Fascism group told JTA. “The European Union needs to pressure Latvia into abandoning this shameful event, but so far there is total silence.”

Many locals offered flowers to the veterans as they marched from the area around St. Peter’s Church to the Freedom Monument.

Advocates of the veterans and their supporters claim that Latvian Legion soldiers were not involved in atrocities against Jews, despite evidence to the contrary. According to the Latvian government, the Latvian Legion was not really an SS unit and the legionnaires who were not forcefully conscripted merely sought independence for Latvia when they joined Hitler’s army.

German Nazis and collaborators led to the near annihilation of 70,000 Jews who had lived in Latvia before the Holocaust.

On Wednesday, the parliament voted down a bill proposing to make March 16 a national Latvian Legion Day.</s>About 1,500 people took part in a march commemorating deceased members of the Latvian Legion of the Waffen SS in Riga, the city police reported Friday.

"Everything was smooth, but there were several conflicts near the Freedom Monument, two persons were detained," the police said.

Participants of the march gathered near the Dome Cathedral in Riga with the aim to march to the Freedom Monument in Riga. The event was attended by former members of the Latvian Waffen SS (Schutzstaffel) and representatives of the country's Saeima (parliament).

The event went by quite peacefully, with participants holding Latvian flags in their hands. The area around the Freedom Monument was cordoned off by police, and there were obstacles on the square in front of the monument.

A group of anti-fascists with posters condemning Nazism met at the Freedom Monument to protest against the march.

A few dozen people with posters saying "they fought for Adolf Hitler" in Latvian, Russian and English met the procession. Antifascists also shouted the phrase "fascism will not pass" and "shame."

The SS, as well as other Nazi organizations, such as the Gestapo, SD and SA, were recognized as criminal organizations during the Nuremberg trials against major figures in the Nazi leadership and war criminals. Moreover, the creation of concentration camps by the SS was recognized as a crime against humanity.

Despite this, a march of participants of the Latvian Legion of the Waffen SS takes place every year in Riga, resulting in discontent and outrage among anti-fascist organizations around the world.

Some countries, such as Russia, have denounced the event, calling it a disgrace. According to a representative of the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Konstantin Dolgov, the fact that Latvian authorities issued a permit allowing veterans of the SS to march contradicts international law and the decisions of the Nuremberg tribunal.</s>Baku. 29 June. REPORT.AZ/ The Latvia-Azerbaijan Business Forum will be held in Riga on July 17.

Within the forum, bilateral meetings are planned to expand business ties with Latvian businessmen. Entrepreneurs interested in traveling to Latvia can contact AZPROMO by July 7.</s>Today, Latvia’s ABLV Bank—its third largest, and largest private bank—announced that it had received approval from the Council of Financial and Capital Market Commission (FCMC) to liquidate, and that the Bank was proceeding with the process of liquidation.

The proximate cause was the U.S. Treasury. It invoked Section 311 of the USA Patriot Act on February 13th, asserting that the ABLV had an “institutionalized money-laundering” problem, including sanction-busting transactions with North Korea. This spelled a death sentence for the ABLV.

At first glance, this is an astounding development. Just last fall, Anders Aslund, an authority on the Latvian economy and Latvia’s banking system, published a comprehensive report on banking system. Aslund’s report focused on money-laundering. He concludes that:

In the period 2008- 15, four major money laundering cases that involved some Latvian banks were revealed. The cases have been thoroughly investigated, and serious punishments, including the revocation of two bank licenses and multiple million-euro fines have been imposed. The Latvian authorities have carried out all conceivable measures to put an end to all money laundering. They have adopted all desired legislation and the consensus judgment is that implementation has become firm since 2015. In 2004, Latvia became a member of the European Union (EU), after having adopted extensive EU legislation. In 2005, it started cooperating with the US Treasury Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and the US Treasury has been a driving force in AML/CTF endeavors. The main effort was undertaken from 2014 to 2016. In January 2014, Latvia adopted the euro and become a member of the Eurozone as well as the European Banking Union, being supervised by the European Central Bank (ECB). In November 2014, the ECB established the Single Supervision Mechanism (SSM) for banks in the European Union, which became operational on January 1, 2016. The ECB supervises the three biggest Latvian banks, while the other Latvian banks are supervised by the Latvian FCMC in cooperation with the ECB."

As far as the ABLV’s financials are concerned, I used Texas Ratio diagnostics to determine the Bank’s soundness. This Ratio was used during the U.S. Savings and Loan Crisis, which was centered in Texas. The Texas Ratio is the book value of all non-performing assets divided by equity capital plus loan-loss reserves. Only tangible equity capital is included in the denominator. Intangible capital — like goodwill — is excluded.

The ratio measures the likelihood of failure by comparing a bank’s bad assets with its available provisions for bad loans plus its capital. When the ratio exceeds 100%, a bank does not have the capacity to absorb its losses from troubled assets. In consequence, it will either require a fresh capital injection, or it will fail.

The table below presents the ABLV’s Texas Ratio, which is based on the Bank’s most recent quarterly report (as of 30 June 2017). The ABLV’s Texas Ratio is rather low, indicating strength, not weakness. Indeed, the financials do not give so much as a whiff of liquidation.</s>Riga, Latvia (CNN) In a shabby apartment block near the center of Latvia's capital, Riga, a group of Russians is carefully watching political events unfolding at home.

This is the newsroom of Meduza, an independent Russian-language website staffed entirely by Russian nationals. Having been pushed out of Russia's media space, Meduza operates out of neighboring Latvia, whose sleepy capital has embraced them.

Barred, they say, from being able to publish independently of the Kremlin, the journalists at Meduza are now covering Russia's presidential election on Sunday from afar.

"The population here speak Russian and they have very simple, strict and transparent rules of business. We have no problem at all with the authorities," said Galina Timchenko, Meduza's executive editor.

"After the annexation of Crimea there was the total cleaning of the media space in Russia," she said. "The Kremlin smashed news agencies and influential editors-in-chief were replaced by pro-Kremlin editors."

She said she was "fired in a second" after reporting on Russia's annexation of Crimea in March 2014.

The majority of her staff resigned from Lenta.ru in protest and several followed her to Riga.

Nestled in a gulf of the Baltic Sea, Riga is a city with cobbled streets, church spires and a dark past.

For some 50 years -- between 1940 and 1991 -- Latvia was under the control of the Kremlin. Dissidents were imprisoned by the Soviets and tortured and murdered by the KGB.

In Riga's center, the KGB's former headquarters stands as a memorial to those who were persecuted. Nearby, Soviet buildings and statues puncture the skyline as a reminder of how this small nation was once ruled by its giant neighbor from Moscow.

But it is not only the journalists and politically active who have fled Russia for Riga.

Pavel Pereverzev owns the Babooshka Bakery in Riga's old town, a little taste of Russia in the ex-Soviet nation. He moved to Latvia in 2011 with his wife and young daughter.

But he said he was not escaping persecution in Russia -- merely looking for a better place to raise his family. "For me, it was never about politics. It was about economics," he told CNN.

Pereverzev took advantage of a law in Latvia that saw foreigners granted residency -- and the right to travel across Europe's Schengen Area -- if they invested more than $94,000 in property in the country.

Latvia, with its large Russian speaking population, is close enough to their homeland to be comfortably familiar. It offers the freedoms and guarantees that they say Russia cannot yet provide.

When he arrived, Pereverzev started several small cafes and said he was surprised he did not have to bribe officials in order to get things done.

"The thing about life here is that it's more predictable," Pereverzev told CNN at his cafe. "The taxes (in Latvia) are higher, but at least you know what they are."

He hasn't decided whether to vote in Sunday's election, but he said Putin has failed Russia on several fronts.

"I can't say which one of his failures is the biggest, but definitely one thing is the lack of rule of law," Pereverzev said.

After his re-election in 2012, in his state-of-the-nation speech, Putin promised to strengthen state controls, crack down on corruption and grow the middle class. In his annual address earlier this month, he spoke broadly about growing the economy and increasing Russia's GDP per capita by half by the mid-2030s.

Pereverzev and Timchenko are part of a number of middle-class Russians who have decided to call time on their home country.

"The dynamics we see are negative," Pereverzev said. "This is not getting better."

Timchenko said she left reluctantly but felt she had no choice.

"For me, he is stealing my future," she said of Putin.

"I remember the 1990s. I remember the smell of freedom. Then something changed," she said.

"Now we have no future at all."
Police arrest a man at the Freedom Monument displaying a poster of soldiers killing Jews as a protest against an annual march in Riga, Latvia, honoring two Latvian SS divisions during World War II.