Over a hundred educational and entertainment events take place during the week, including the Diversity and Inclusion Forum, an international conference devoted to human rights and democracy which took place Wednesday. If you missed it you can watch the video recording on LSM (in Latvian).
The main event of the week – a march titled "We are Latvia too" will take place on Saturday, June 3.
Until then, several other events are there for all audiences.
On Thursday there will be, among others, a pride picnic at 16:00 to 20:00, Zuzeum (Lāčplēša Street 101) and Openly Queer Mic at the cultural space Skapis (The Closet, Aristīda Briāna Street 9a) at 19:30 to 21:30.
On Friday, there will be an online Queer History Conference (to be streamed on Riga Pride Facebook page), a Riga Queer Tour starting 13:00 at the Freedom Monument, a Baltic Trans Network Discussion at Skapis (Aristīda Briāna Street 9a) 16:30 to 18:00, a drag night at K.K. fon Stricka Villa (Aristīda Briāna Street 9), and parties at 1989 (Vagonu Street 21) and Rīgas Pērle restaurant (11. novembra krastmala, 1905. gada piemineklis).
Several exhibitions are available until June 11.
The full program of events can be consulted at the Rīga Pride website.
On June 1 morning, head of the 'Dzīvesbiedri' (Life Partners) movement Kaspars Zālītis said in an interview with Latvian Television that the movement looks forward to a discussion on the Istanbul Convention and the legal framework for partnerships from the newly elected President Edgars Rinkēvičs.
Zālitis pointed out that Latvia's LGBT+ community is in one of the worst situations in Europe when it comes to human rights and legal protection. The public, however, is becoming more open and more aware of hate crimes.
“If we compare to a couple of years ago, the law enforcement did not know how to apply the articles to hate crimes, but now we see them starting to understand what aggravating circumstances are,” Zālitis said.
Zālītis said the situation with attacks against representatives of the LGBT+ community in Latvia is very harsh, but he is pleased that people are talking about it. "In the past it was latent, nobody talked about it, and then we were told very often: where are those crimes?, because we [others] don't see them. At the moment, people are talking about it and it is extremely important," said the head of the movement.
