The Constitution Protection Bureau (counterintelligence agency of Latvia) sent a letter to the Parliamentary Commission on Human Rights and Public Affairs and warned that the publication of the former KGB of the Latvian SSR – the so-called bags of the Cheka – will give an easy win to the countries that are not very friendly to Latvia, the Delfi news agency reports.

The Constitution Protection Bureau (SAB) believed that the publication of the KGB archives on the Internet can create various risks and will reduce public confidence in security agencies. The Counterintelligence Agency notes that the information contained in the archive inadequately and unreasonably affects the interests of different people.

 “The unprofessional use of archived documents of the communist special services may lead to a situation when reality is not reflected but created,” the SAB wrote in the letter to the Sejm.

The SAB also notes that unlike neighboring Lithuania and Estonia, Latvia did not have a law on lustration at the rise of independence restoration.

 “It is too late to make a decision to start a lustration process now since there are people who died or left the country,” the special service wrote. “If we start a lustration process now, we will violate the rights to privacy and personal data guaranteed in the Constitution of the Latvian Republic.”

According to the SAB, the publication of the LSSR KGB archives on the Internet is an act that meets the interests of the countries that are unfriendly to Latvia.

Earlier, the Latvian Ministry of Justice developed a project of new rules that will allow Latvian residents to get to access the so-called bags of the Cheka, the archives of the LSSR KGB. The documents will be available in the National Archive and on the Internet.

  Latvia, KGB, Russia, USSR

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