On Thursday, 21 April, Latvia’s Saeima passed in the final reading amendments to the Citizenship Law, providing legal basis for stripping a person of Latvian citizenship if he or she supports war crimes.
In the event of having their citizenship revoked, these people will not become stateless.
Amendments initially proposed by the Ministry of Justice later corrected by the Defence, Internal Affairs and Corruption Prevention Committee and finally passed by the parliament on 21 April dictate the procedure for revoking Latvian citizenship from persons who have provided significant financial, material, propaganda, technological or other kind of support to countries of people who are responsible for actions, including genocide, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes that ruin or undermine democratic countries’ territorial integrity, sovereignty, independence or constitutional order.
Additionally, citizenship will be revoked if the person had participated in aforementioned actions.
Citizenship will be revoked in the event if a person does not become stateless. This means citizenship will be revoked for people who have dual citizenship. Latvian citizenship will not be revoked for supporters of war crimes for whom Latvian is the only citizenship.
The parliament decided that information about a person committing any of the aforementioned actions will be provided by state security institutions.
Challenge and appeal of the decision to revoke a person’s citizenship will not halt the decision.
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This became a hot topic after 24 February, when Russia commenced a military invasion of Ukraine.
It is also reported that Latvia has decided to ban public use of symbols associated with this armed conflict, including the letters Z and V.