On 30 October at 16:00 Pēteris Greste, an Australian journalist of Latvian descent who also holds Latvian citizenship, will hold a public lecture in Auditorium 3 at Rīga Stradiņš University. 

Modern warfare changed with US president George W. Bush's announcement on the War on Terror following the attacks on 11 September. Instead of nations battling for land, water, ethnicity or political power, "a clash of civilisations" became the centre of conflict. In this war, the medium that is used for the dissemination of ideas – the mass media – is part of the battleground. 

Professor Pēteris Greste is UNESCO Chair in Journalism and Comm in the School of Communication and Arts at the University of Queensland. He will talk not only about the personal impact that conflict has on journalists worldwide but also how this war influences the media, threatening democracy globally. 

Pēteris Greste, born in 1965, is an Australian journalist of Latvian descent who also holds Latvian citizenship. From 1991 to1995 he worked in London, Bosnia and South Africa, representing Reuters, CNN, WTN and BBC.

Working in Egypt for the TV channel Al Jazeera English, on 29 December 2013 he was arrested, together with two of his work colleagues from the broadcasting station, and on 23 June 2014 he was sentenced to 7 years in prison. There was widespread Western condemnation of this sentence, handed down by the Egyptian government as it was considered to be politically-motivated.

On 1 February 2015 Pēteris Greste was released from jail and expelled from Egypt. During his time in jail P. Greste learnt that he has dual citizenship and that he is also a citizen of Latvia. Latvia was actively involved in the campaign to free the journalist from prison.