Local events.
So, last Friday night, there were reports of a fire in a city in Latvia. As per initial reports, a small fire in a housing block, two people hurt severely enough to be hospitalized.
Soon, more information emerged - the less severely hurt of the involved individuals claimed that the fire was a result of a deliberate attack. Allegedly, the other person who suffered burns on 85% of his body was targeted due to his sexual orientation. There were additional reports of previous threats of harm if the victim wouldn't leave the city; reportedly the threats stem from a personal work-related conflict with an unnamed person, and homophobic speech was involved (documented, since it was sent in SMS). The local police had investigated the claims of previous threats, and reportedly found no reason to charge anyone. It's a speculation, but it might have been due to the fact that the sexual orientation of the individual was "perceived" as homosexual - there no reports that he had been openly gay, and the only reason homophobic slurs were targeted towards him were reportedly due to the fact that he had co-rented a flat with another guy. No idea how much of that is true, at the moment.
Obviously, this was a great deal for LGBT rights organizations, their spokespersons published their views, some small protests emerged due to perceived inactivity of the police department of the involved city. The initial response from that police department was that "while investigation is ongoing, it is considered possible that no crime was committed", which went over about as well as you might imagine. I mean, a guy is in a hospital with 85% bodily burns, and "maybe no crime"? With no additional information, that just calls for a loud "WTF".
Well, some people started blaming churches, conservative politicians and the homophobic environment that they'd created with their public opinions over the years, which is, while in some particular published cases far-fetched, but not exactly unreasonable, overall. Truth be told, Latvia is generally a rather homophobic country, there's no other way to put it. And the police dep't of that city was blamed for trying to cover up the crime - which is not unreasonable, either, due to their previous reputation; I personally know of a case where excessive force was used against an acquaintance of mine (in essence, response to a noise violation in a house party involved much more physical force and writing slurs on bodies of detained people with a permanent marker that the situation warranted), and the very same policemen apparently were later involved in an armed robbery resulting in at least one casualty, so, while the "a few bad apples" defense was obviously used, the damage was done.
So, the "conservatives/traditionalists" were put on the defense in the public discourse. Obviously, their response was generally "wait till all the facts are in" which was greeted with the expected eye-roll from the "other side", which, again, is about what you'd expect in the given situation.
Well, some additional facts did come in. Namely, it appears that the 85%-burn guy was in the process of being tried for 5 counts of arson. The trial is still ongoing, but reportedly, he had admitted his fault in all episodes; the only question remaining is whether NGRI applies. Which, overall, does kinda flip the whole thing on its head.
It's a shitshow overall, but the worst aspect is that, if this is a case of self-immolation, which does seem rather plausible at the moment, it's quite a setback for the LGBT rights movement in this country. And it's not like it's been particularly easy for them so far.