Following a string of incidents involving tourists behaving badly at the Freedom Monument in Riga, a British visitor to the city has been imprisoned for five days for urinating on Latvia’s most potent symbol of the struggle for independence. I would like to think that the sentence will deter others, but having seen the behaviour of a significant minority of tourists in Riga it sadly seems unlikely.
The twist in this tale comes from the Latvian interior minister Mareks Seglins, whose response to the conviction was to say that he was fed up with the spectacle of Brits abroad: “Those English pigs… they are a dirty, hoggish people.” The Latvian President later distanced himself from the remarks on national radio, while the British Embassy maintains that only a small number of British visitors get into trouble. True enough – it really is a tiny percentage of the total number of visitors – but I do find it depressing that the majority of these incidents seem to involve Brits. Ask around in Riga and you will see that as a nation we are getting a decidedly bad name.
Apologies, by the way, to any regular readers for the severe disruption to normal service recently. I moved out of the UK and have been busy with all the things which that entails. I hope to get the site back on track now. I know I’m behind with this latest bit of news, but since I’ve been following these incidents I wanted to note them here anyway.
1 response so far ↓
1 Eddie // Mar 12, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Why was such a ridiculously short sentence given for this offence?
It seems impossible.
Cultured Europeans have been talking about having to do something about the ‘British scum’ that have been invading them for the past 15 years (In Ireland’s case it is 800 years).
And yet, when many opportunities presents thenselves like this one, nothing is done.
Why?
Nobody would object to a 6 month sentence - except maybe the Brits.
‘When cultured people are too big-minded to take action, the illiterate thug gets bigger.’
Leave a Comment