News of: Monday, July 24 2006,
The city of Amsterdam will invite the authorities of Riga (the capital of Latvia) for next year's Amsterdam gay pride.
The reason for this is the incident that took place in Riga this week. The Riga gay pride march was prohibited by the local authorities, and as an alternative a meeting was organized in a hotel. Hundreds of anti-gay demonstrators subsequently attacked the participants, amongst which were several politicians from elsewhere in European. The vice-mayor of Amsterdam, Mr Tjeerd Herrema, was one of them. The demonstrators threw eggs and even feces at the participants, but the police did nothing.
As Riga is a so-called 'sister city' of Amsterdam in a European Union framework (Latvia is one of the newest member countries of the European Union). Part of accession to the Union is the anti-discrimination regulations that have been laid down in Europe.
Therefore, Amsterdam has decided to invite the Riga authorities for next year's Amsterdam Gay Pride, and write an letter to ask for an explanation.
