At least one person from Latvia is among 24 men who were freed Sept. 11 from their slave-like conditions at a British caravan site, about 70 kilometers northwest of London, police say.

Five persons, including a pregnant woman, were arrested as part of the investigation. Two other suspects are being sought. About 100 officers were involved in a series of arrests at the caravan site in Leighton Buzzard, according to press releases from Bedfordshire Police.

The men who were freed have been provided with medical and welfare care by British authorities.

“The men we found at the site were in a poor state of physical health and the conditions they were living in were shockingly filthy and cramped,” said Det. Chief Inspector Sean O’Neil of the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit. “We believe that some of them had been living and working there in a state of virtual slavery, some for just a few weeks and other for up to 15 years.”

The men range in age from 17 to 57. They were mostly British or Eastern European, police said. Most of them are cooperating with the investigation.

Dubbed “Operation Netwing,” the investigation “centered around intelligence suggesting that a number of people were being held against their will in poor conditions at the site and forced to work for no pay,” according to a police press release. Police were assisted in the investigation by the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre.

The arrests were made under the U.K.‘s Slavery and Servitude Act 2010.

“The new legislation has allowed the investigation more scope and takes into account emotional rather than physical harm,” O’Neil said. “I am confident that while the investigation is in its early stages this is a family run ‘business’ and is an organized crime group that has been broken up by the Netwing operation.”

A petition calling for constitutional amendments to make Russian the second official language in Latvia has been submitted to the Central Election Commission in Rīga.

The petition with 12,516 voter signatures was submitted Sept. 9, according to commission spokesperson Kristīne Bērziņa. The commission must now evaluate the petition, a process that could take up to four weeks because of the upcoming Sept. 17 parliamentary election.

The notarized signatures, on 4,405 pages, were submitted by the Russian-oriented “Dzimtā valoda” (Native Language) organization. The group has been gathering signatures for months.

The Latvian constitution recognizes Latvian as the sole state language.

Under Latvian law, amendments to the constitution can be initiated by at least 10,000 voters signing a petition within a one-year period. If the signatures are determined to be valid, the election commission must call for a 30-day period in which additional signatures would be gathered.

The proposed constitutional amendments would affect:

• Paragraph 4, which currently makes Latvian the only state language.
• Paragraph 18, which stipulates the oath made by members of parliament. Under current language, they promise to strengthen Latvian as the only state language.
• Paragraph 21, which states that Latvian is the language of the Saeima.
• Paragraph 101, which states that the official language of local governments is Latvian.
• Paragraph 104, which guarantees people the right to address government bodies and to receive an answer in Latvian.

If at least 10 percent of the number of eligible voters in the last parliamentary election sign on to the initiative, then the Saeima will have to consider the amendments. Because the Sept. 17 election will be the most recent, that means 154,270 signatures will need to be gathered—including those already submitted on the petition.

If the signature drive is successful and the Saeima either amends or rejects the proposed constitutional amendments, then the question would be put to a national referendum. To pass, at least half of all eligible voters would have to cast ballots in favor of the amendments.

In June, an effort to amend the constitution to make Latvian the only language of instruction in public schools fell short of the required number of signatures to force a referendum.

A total of 539 citizens have applied to vote by mail in the Sept. 17 parliamentary election in Latvia, according to data compiled by the Central Election Commission in Rīga. That is a nearly 40 percent decrease from the 890 persons worldwide who planned to cast absentee ballots in the last Saeima election.

Applications to vote by mail were due Sept. 2 and could be submitted to any of 21 Latvian embassies or consulates around world.

The greatest number of applications—174, or about 32 percent of the total—were received by the Latvian Embassy in Washington, D.C.

The Latvian Embassy in Oslo, Norway, was second with 121. That number typically includes Latvia’s soldiers serving in Afghanistan.

Third was the Latvian Embassy in Bonn, Germany, which received 83 absentee ballot applications.

The embassies in London and Stockholm both received 36 applications. The embassy in Ottawa, Canada, got 30 applications.

The embassies in Azerbaijan, Greece, Israel, Russia and Turkey received no absentee ballot applications, according to the election commission’s data.

Persons who applied for absentee ballots had to complete an application form and send along their current Latvian passport. Absentee ballots were to be mailed to applicants between Sept. 3-7.