Baltic pride parade planned in Riga on June 9

Mozaika, the Latvian lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights group, plans to organize the Baltic Pride 2018 parade on June 9, said Aira Smelde, a spokeswoman for the Riga City Council.

She said the organizers of the parade have applied for the municipal authorization required to hold public events in Riga but would not say when the Riga City Council was likely to make its decision and whether the local authority might impose some restrictions regarding the organization of the event.

It is planned that around 2,000 people will participate in the parade in the Riga center that is to begin at noon on June 9 and will last for three hours.

Baltic Pride is organized annually in one of the three Baltic states, and this year it is Latvia's turn to host the annual Baltic gay pride event.

The purpose of Baltic Pride 2018 is to draw attention to the issues related to the human rights of the LGBT people in Latvia, Baltics and the EU. Various events, including an international conference on freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and a number of cultural events will be organized in Riga from March 3 to June 10 with the gay pride parade planned on June 9.

Last time Latvia hosted a gay pride event in 2015. It was the pan-European LGBT event, EuroPride 2015. The gay pride parade in Riga that year gathered about 5,000 participants, and over 60 different cultural and entertainment events were organized in the Latvian capital during the EuroPride week.