ILGA-Europe’s Executive Board elects new Co-Chairs and officers
During the meeting of ILGA-Europe’s Executive Board on 5-7 December 2008, new Co-Chairs were elected – Linda Freimane and Martin K.I.Christensen, who was first elected to the position in 2007.
Print HTMLThe Executive Board elected Deborah Lambillotte as Secretary and Pierre Serne as Treasurer.
Linda Freimane is one of the founders and present chairperson of the LGBT and their friends' organisation "Mozaika" in Latvia. She has been the main responsible organiser of the Friendship Days and Riga Pride 2006 - 2008.
Linda is a lawyer and activist, born in Stockholm, Sweden, in a Latvian family. Early on she became active in various youth organisations. Since 2006 she is board member of ILGA-Europe.
Linda has graduated the School of Journalism of the University of Stockholm (1989). Her first employment was with the daily Svenska Dagbladet. Later she worked as a journalist at Radio Sweden, which launched a Latvian news broadcast in 1988.
In the 1990s Linda graduated the Law Faculty, University of Stockholm with an LLM in European Union law, and soon after she moved permanently to Riga. In Riga she first worked with Latvia's pre-accession programmes, harmonising Latvian legislation with EU standards. Later she was engaged to set up the Riga Graduate School of Law, a Swedish-Latvian owned, private University for Baltic students.
Since 2005 Linda works as business consultant in Riga – serving corporate clients and organisations in their reputational, crisis, media and other needs. She is also engaged in the Baltic corporate travel market. Working with LGBT issues has become her full time on-the-side job, a task, which she sees as one of the greatest and most interesting challenges in her life so far.
In 1999 Linda registered her partnership with Yvonne Gerner, a Danish graphic artist.
Martin K.I. Christensen’s involvement as a gay activist began at the Lesbian and Gay Radio in Copenhagen, Radio Rosa. He later became Chairman of the Association running the radio and was then elected member of the National Board of LBL, the Danish National Association of Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals.
For the last 5 years Martin have been a member of the Board of LBL International and thereby involved in ILGA-Europe and bilateral cooperation with other organisations in both Eastern and Western Europe.
Martin is the founding co-chair of the LGBT group in the Social Liberal Party. He also a member of the party executive committee, chair of the EU working group and is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Furthermore Martin is a chairman of the Communication Group of the Danish Association of Journalists.
Martin has a master’s degree in History and Middle East Studies and spent parts of his studies in the Netherlands and in Istanbul. All his professional life Martin has worked as a communication officer and journalist.
Martin was born in 1967 and work as the chief editor of the membership magazine of the Danish Construction Association – an employer’s union and lobby organisation.
For more information please contact
Juris Lavrikovs at + 32 2 609 54 16 / + 32 496 708 375
Notes for editors:
(1) ILGA-Europe is the European Region of ILGA, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Association and works for equality and human rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Europe: www.ilga-europe.org
