On Saturday, 22 October, a procession against «mandatory miliary service» or State National Defence Service is planned to take place in Riga, as conformed by Riga City Council.
The procession-rally is planned to start at Freedom Square at 14:00 p.m. and continue to the Monument to Oskars Kalpaks at 16:00 p.m.
The stated objective of the event is protesting in order to preserve military service as a voluntary option and to prevent the adoption of mandatory military service.
The number of participants is planned to reach 250. The procession was submitted by some private person.
Riga City Council reports no information that could be reason to limit this event.
The invitation to participate in the procession was posted on Facebook anonymously.
According to available information, organisers of the procession represent «an informal group of active citizens» that call themselves Rīko tikai tavējie.
They also invite residents to go on manabalss.lv platform to sign the initiative regarding voluntary national defence service. This petition has received some criticisms in the comment section.
As previously reported, the legislative draft for the National Defence Service and accompanying amendments were passed by the Cabinet of Ministers on 20 September.
However, this week the Saeima decided to postpone reviewing this legislative draft.
More on this topic: Latvia’s National Defence Service Law left for 14th Saeima to tackle