2009 Riga riot

2009 Riga riot was a civil unrest in Riga, Latvia on January 13, 2009.

2009 Riga Riot
Meeting before riots
LocationRiga (capital of Latvia)
DateJanuary 13, 2009
17:30 (EET (UTC +2))
Attack type
Damage of public and private property, rebellion. Attempt to take by assault the building of Parliament of Latvia.
WeaponsRebels: different objects (eggs, stones, bottles, etc.), and bottles filled with inflammable mixtures.
Military and police: batons, shields, teargas.
Injuredmore than 50
Perpetratorsindividual rebels; more than 100 arrested
No. of participants
Directly involved: several hundreds
Protesters: around 10,000
DefendersPublic Order Police and its Special Unit "Alfa" (State Police), Military Police (National Armed Forces), and Riga Municipal Police.

The opposition and trade unions organized a rally requesting dissolution of the parliament.[1] The rally gathered some 10–20 thousand people. The rally was because of the recent economic crisis that struck Latvia in 2009 and made more than almost 70% of the Latvian population either poor or unemployed. Once one of the growing economies in Europe, Latvia was struck in 2009 by the crisis. In the evening the peaceful rally turned into a riot. Fifty people were injured and 100 arrested for overturning police cars and looting stores.[2] The crowd moved to the building of the parliament and attempted to force into it, but was repelled.[3]

On February 20, the cabinet of Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis was dissolved and Godmanis resigned his position as head of the government.[4]

See also

References
  1. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-02-11. Retrieved 2010-11-23.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-06-15. Retrieved 2009-11-09.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. Latvian Financial Crisis - the multi-billion-euro Parex/EBRD/Ernst&Young fraud. 26 June 2012 – via YouTube.
  4. "Crisis and Rallies Removed the Latvian Government" Archived 2009-06-05 at the Wayback Machine (in Polish)


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