The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) protested Tuesday, in vain, against the decision of the city hall of Riga to replace the official Belarusian flag with the one used by opponents of the regime in place, during the current World Cup-2021. , played in Latvia. The day before, Belarus ordered the expulsion of the Latvian ambassador and all embassy staff in Minsk, accusing Riga of changing those flags, to which Latvia responded with an identical measure .
In a statement, the IIHF denied its “agreement with the measures taken the day before by the mayor of Riga and the Latvian foreign minister to use the flag of a country participating in the 2021 World Ice Hockey Championship of the IIHF as a political message ”. According to the Federation “the actions of the Belarusian government are distinct from those of the players who compete under the Belarusian flag in this tournament”. In the event of a negative response from the town hall, the IIHF asked the mayor of Riga to “urgently withdraw” the IIHF flag as well as that of the World Championship, recalling that it is about “An apolitical sports organization”.
“I made my choices and we will proceed with the withdrawal of the IIHF flags,” replied Mayor Martins Stakis on his Facebook site. “We cannot forget that just a few hundred kilometers away an EU plane is hijacked, people are tortured and killed,” Stakis said. The town hall implemented these decisions the day after Belarus intercepted an airliner and the arrest of an opposition journalist on board. The mayor accused the Belarusian regime of “committing crimes and behaving like a bandit nationally and internationally”. Mr. Stakis assured that the Belarusian flags were always “present” but that they were the “white-red-white flags of free Belarus”, instead of the red-green ones which he considered as “Lukashenko flags. “.
The 2021 Ice Hockey World Championship, which kicked off in Riga on Friday, the last major event for the sport before the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, was initially to be jointly hosted by Riga and Minsk.
The tournament ultimately only takes place in Latvia, following the murderous crackdown by the authoritarian regime of Alexander Lukashenko on mass protests after his controversial re-election in August 2020.
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