On 13 October, President of Latvia Egils Levits, who is currently on a working visit to the Kingdom of Sweden, met with staff of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law and discussed current human rights agenda. Institute is engaged in human rights research and programmes in more than 40 world countries.
President and Institute’s staff discussed human rights from multiple dimensions, including economic, digital and COVID-19. President underlined that human rights extend well beyond their legal definition.
Egils Levits stressed that fundamental human rights are universal, while other human rights are inextricably linked to specific social traditions, culture and customs. Discussion then switched to providing human rights support to other countries of the world, in particular EU’s Eastern Partnership area.
Conversation also focused on human rights challenges and future perspectives. General consensus was that societies are becoming increasingly polarised and social media have heavily contributed to this phenomena.
Representatives of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute presented Ravensbrück archives to the President of Latvia. These archives contain documentary evidence from the World War II, which shows that Sweden took in around 20 000 concentration camp prisoners near the end of the war.