This summer, the Baltic Human Rights Society and the cilvēltiesības.info portal, in cooperation with the Ombudsman's Office, organised a competition for articles on the topic "Let Human Rights Speak!" (Ļauj Cilvēktiesībām Runāt!”). The aim of the competition was to encourage law students and young professionals to speak up for human rights and issues related to them in Latvia and to attract new authors and reporters to collaborate with the cilvektiesibas.info portal.

The fundamental purpose of the Cilvēktiesības.info portal is to provide information about human rights issues of national, regional and international importance for Latvia. The portal aims to promote an interest in and understanding of current relevant human rights issues and is intended for a wide range of users: professionals working in the public or private sector who are involved on a daily basis with the application of human rights, journalists, students in the specific fields, as well as the general public. The primary focus of the portal is on human rights issues which are of either direct relevance to Latvia or which may be of general interest to Latvia, being the latest developments in human rights. However, it may also cover broader issues related to the rule of law and democracy where they include a human rights element. 

The following factors were taken into account in assessing the entries: the importance of the topic in the Latvian context, its relevance in the context of current international events, the clarity of presentation of the topic, the accuracy of the legal sources and their analysis, as well as the use of language and punctuation. The competition attracted a lot of interest and received entries on various current human rights issues.

First place and a cash prize of EUR 150 was awarded to Kristīne Rutkovska for her article "The Right to Freedom of Expression in the Context of Self-Protecting Democracy", second place and a cash prize of EUR 100 to Alise Artamonova for her article "How can companies identify human rights risks in their value chains?", third place and a cash prize of EUR 50 as well as the Ombudsman's recognition was awarded to Evisa Matejūna for her article "Respect of the Right to Life in the State and Public Administration. A case study". Beāte Bauga was also awarded the opportunity to publish her article "Decriminalisation of defamation: an opportunity for Latvia to ensure media freedom?".

The award ceremony took place on 12 September at the Ombudsman's Office in the presence of the winners, the Ombudsman and representatives of the Ombudsman's Office, as well as the creative team of the Baltic Human Rights Society and cilvektiesibas.info. 

The competition was supported financially by the Society Integration Fund from the Latvian state budget, allocated by the Ministry of Culture, as well as by the EEA/Norway Grant Programme.

The articles are available on the cilvektiesibas.info portal in Latvian!