■ Janis Smits, the anti-gay member of the Latvian Sarima.

RIGA, November 22, 2006  –  Janis Smits has said that “the gay issue” is not an urgent matter for the Latvian Parliamentary Human Rights Committee.  The outspoken and homophobic MP was chosen on Monday by committee members to be its chairperson.

Interviewed in Neatkariga Rita Avize, the Latvian conservative and anti-gay daily newspaper, he also said that he will be able to make a distinction between his personal opinion and his role as a chairperson of the parliamentary human rights committee, saying that he is aware that not always his and the committee’s view will be the same.

And while he will not go out of his way to cause controversy, he stressed that he will not depart from his previous convictions which derive from the Bible.

Mr. Smits said that with his one vote he will not be able to limit, ‘marinate’ or prevent legislative initiatives in favour of lesbian and gay interests.  He also said he is neither able nor willing to obstruct the participation of lesbian and gay organisations during the committee’s meeting discussing such issues and expressing their views.

However he told Neatkariga Rita Avize that lesbian and gay issues are not the most important issues in the country – and promised to concentrate on the rights of families and children.

The selection of Mr. Smits caused immediate reaction across Europe and beyond.

Yesterday, Terry Davis, secretary general of the Council of Europe said he was “very concerned” about the election of Mr. Smits.

“The parliamentarians who made this decision should realise that what is at stake is the international reputation of Latvia,” he said in a statement from Strasbourg.

“The best way to clear the air would be for the Latvian parliament to ratify Protocol 12 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees that no-one shall be discriminated against on any ground by any public authority.  This general prohibition of discrimination extends to gays and lesbians as much as religious, ethnic or any other minority groups”.

In the UK, George Broadhead, the chairperson of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association, was less diplomatic about the selection.  “The supreme irony is that he has been elected chairperson of a human rights committee – it’s rather like an SS officer being put in charge of a Jewish nursery school,” he said.

Ingrida Circene, the New Era party MP who stood in opposition to Mr. Smits, said Smits’ election was “a good example of how a person with a weird perception of human rights [is voted into] an office for the sake of the coalition”, the Baltic Times reported.

Immediately after his election, Mr. Smits said he will work honestly and would comply with the Latvian Constitution which guarantees human rights to all Latvian inhabitants. He called the media coverage of his nomination a “huge stupidity”.

Speaking to the Latvia news agency LETA this morning, Mozaika – the alliance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender people and their friends – said it will wait for further reactions from the Latvian authorities and European Union institutions before commenting further on the election of Mr. Smits.

But Mozaika did point out that the Council of Europe had expressed concerns.

On Friday morning, Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis is scheduled to meet Jose Barroso, the President of the European Commission, in Brussels.  It is understoond that the election of Mr. Smits is possibly going to be discussed.

Mozaika has pledged to continue to scrutinise Janis Smits’ activities in the Latvian Parliament.  The group said it hopes that sexual minorities will also be included in his areas of priorities – rights of families and children.

Mozaika stressed that people with different sexual orientation from the majority are not a ‘separate and privileged group’ [as Janis Smits has previously stated] but part of society to which the issues of family and children rights are relevant.

One of such issues is legalisation of same-sex families and a right of same-sex partner to adopt a biological child of his/her partner.

Mozaika pointed that children brought up in same-sex families in Latvia do not enjoy the same rights as other children.

SEE ALSO

Fiercely Anti-Gay Politician Selected at Chair of Latvian Parliament Human Rights and Social Affairs Committee.  The Lativan Saeima (Parliament) has confirmed this afternoon the nomination of Janis Smits as the chairperson of the Saeima’s Human Rights and Social Affairs Committee.  And Europe is outraged.  (UK Gay News, November 20, 2006)

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