🇱🇻MAYOR OF RIGA: EVERYONE HAS TO PICK A SIDE TO STAND ON
Yesterday in Riga, hosting the World Hockey Championship, the red and green official flag of Belarus was replaced by the white-red-white one. The city’s mayor did it, raising the banner entrusted to him by the Belarusian political refugees.

“The flag that symbolizes a regime conducting state terrorism is inappropriate for the Riga’s urban environment”, the mayor said.

The head of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) René Fasel was outraged at this. “We have sent a letter to the mayor of Riga. This is unacceptable. We will not change flags at the arena. And we will ask to remove the flags of the world championship and the IIHF from the places where the flags were changed." Earlier this year, Rene Fasel traveled to Belarus to meet Lukashenko and had insisted that the World Hockey Championship should have been hosted by Minsk.

“I have received a request from Mr René Fasel, the President of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), to return the red and green flags of Belarus to the public space of Riga. If that is not done, he has requested to remove the flags of IIHF instead.
Flags of Belarus are present in Riga – the white-red-and-white flags of the free Belarus. The International Ice Hockey Championship is first and foremost a celebration for athletes, hockey fans, the people of Riga and Latvia. But we cannot forget that just a few hundred kilometers away an EU aircraft is hijacked and people are being tortured and killed. The regime committing these crimes is behaving like a bandit on the national and now also on an international level. (...)
However, the President of the IIHF Mr Fasel seems to think otherwise. Everyone has to pick a side to stand on – to stand with the persecuted people longing for freedom or with a bloody and uncontrollable dictator. I have made my choice, and we will proceed with removing the IIHF flags from the public space in Riga.” says Mārtiņš Staķis, the mayor of Riga.

Egils Levits, the President of Latvia, called the mayor’s actions “an adequate political reaction” and a signal that Latvia doesn’t recognize the “authorities” of Belarus.

Yesterday’s replacement of the flag in Riga was the cause to expel Latvian diplomats from Belarus. They were given 24 hours to leave the country. In response, Latvia expelled Belarusian diplomats.

This morning the city hall of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, also replaced the red and green flag with the white-red-white one.