“The unlawful actions of the Latvian authorities and other facts of human rights violations, including the disproportionate measure of restraint chosen to the acts incriminated to Kasem, create a legal basis for sending relevant complaints to international courts, as well as through the UN human rights bodies.
The persecution of Kasem and other egregious cases of repressions against journalists in the Baltics are under the close attention of the Russian Foreign Ministry,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
The department also emphasized that "Russia is not going to become like the Baltic states and use punitive justice to prosecute dissent."
“In response, we will continue to take steps of a diplomatic and economic nature, which, as we see, have quite sensitive consequences for Riga,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
On January 18, a Latvian court upheld Marat Kasem, editor-in-chief of Sputnik Lithuania, who was detained by Latvian special services in Riga on suspicion of violating EU anti-Russian sanctions.