Several hundred people protested outside the Latvian parliament, the Saeima, on 2 October 2025 against a proposal for Latvia to withdraw from the Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention, LSM reports. The convention aims to prevent and combat violence against women and domestic violence. MPs from opposition parties and the Union of Greens and Farmers (ZZS), which is part of the current coalition government, have drawn up a draft law to exit the human rights treaty. The protesters urged MPs to reject the proposal, warning that it would send a very bad signal to society that the problem of violence was not taken seriously. The only country that has signed but then withdrawn from the Istanbul Convention is Turkey.
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