Number of Politically Repressed Persons in Latvia Continues to Drop Sharply
Currently, there are 7,725 people with the status of politically repressed in Latvia—significantly fewer than a year or a decade ago. The majority are elderly who experienced deportations as children.
On the Day of Remembrance of Victims of Communist Genocide, June 14, commemorating the 1941 deportations when over 15,400 people were sent from Latvia to Siberia and Kazakhstan, Jauns.lv examines the trend in the number of politically repressed persons.
After the restoration of independence in 1991, status was granted to tens of thousands based on the Law on Determining the Status of a Politically Repressed Person. At the end of the 1990s, 30,000–40,000 people held this status. In 2011 alone, 18,566 individuals were recognized as victims of the communist or Nazi regime.
In 2024, the Latvian Association of Politically Repressed reported 8,870 people with repressed status—8,278 from the communist regime and 592 from the Nazi regime. This spring, the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (PMLP) recorded 7,725 persons with this status. Most are elderly individuals who were deported as small children or born in exile during the deportations of June 14, 1941, and March 25, 1949.
The decrease is also reflected in Riga City Council data: last year before June 14, 1,823 residents received the political repressee benefit, while this year that number is 1,706.
