This autumn, the Baltic Human Rights Society and the cilvektiesibas.info portal, in cooperation with the Ombudsman's Office, organised competition for articles on the topic "Let Human Rights Speak!" (Ļauj Cilvēktiesībām Runāt!”). This year is the third year the contest is being organised. The aim of the competition is 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 cilvektiesibas.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.

The first place and a cash prize of EUR 200 was awarded to Everts Krauklis for his article "The Migrant Crisis on the Latvian Border - A Challenge to the European Court of Human Rights", second place and a cash prize of EUR 150 was awarded to Roberts Gusts for his article "Information Overflow as a Tool to Suppress Public Opinion", and the third place and a cash prize of EUR 100 was awarded to Samanta Kolpaka for her article "Compulsory Vaccination of Children". 

Three other participants were given the opportunity to publish this year. Acknowledgements went to Viktorija Larkina for her article "Family court: a step towards more effective protection of children's rights", Egija Rubene for her article "Gender equality and affirmative action: is it time to change the approach?" and Eduards Romans for his article "The right to be genderless".

The award ceremony took place on 31st of October at the Ombudsman's Office in the presence of the winners 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.

Soon the articles will be available on the cilvektiesibas.info portal in Latvian!