Few days after the skinheads' march over the streets of Vilnius on the Independence Day, news portal DELFI hosted a virtual press conference with Jolanta Samuolyte, HRMI Research Director. Readers poured in hundreds of questions concerning the march and other human rights issues.
"Regrettably, intolerance and discrimination is an issue in Lithuania," replied J. Samuolyte to an expressed doubt. She implored numerous examples of intolerance, hatred, discrimination and other forms of abuse based on ethnic or racial grounds.
J. Samuolyte emphasized how important it is to react to racial outbursts in timely and adequate manner. Otherwise, an incident of racism may become a precedent and bring forth much more serious outbreaks. In this context, it is especially regrettable that Lithuanian police is rarely successful in producing an adequate reaction. Furthemore, some cases of clearly criminal character failed to receive proper attention from the prosecutor’s office.
"There’s nothing wrong with singing Lithuanian songs. The problem occurs when the songs are attenuated with slogans reflecting racial hatred, such as "Juden raus" ("Get out, Jews") and "Lithuania without Russians". If only Lithuanian folklore or anthem were sung during the march – we wouldn’t talk todays about it as it woudn’t have violated anyone’s rights. The march would have been an expression of freedom of speech," explained J. Samuolyte.
"One of the main tools to fight intolerance and discrimination is education," she said. "A consistent state policy on teaching tolerance throughout all the layers of society, starting from early age, is necessary. If our children were taught to be tolerant to people of different racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, a new tolerant generation would emerge preventing further spread of racism."
"However, we can contribute to enhancing tolerance and non-discriminating attitudes right now – by not being passive," noted J. Samuolyte. “If you see an incident of racial abuse on a street – contact police, if you stumble upon a racist commentary on the web – do not hesitate to contact the website administrator and inform the prosecutor’s office. We can fight discrimination fairly easily – each and every one of us by simply taking action.”
Some readers submitted that to much of tolerance may strike back. "Tolerance can never strike back at us," assured human rights expert. "The sole essence of tolerance is an equal treatment for everyone. So if we treat others as equals, they will treat us just the same," emphasized J. Samuolyte.
She also reminded that every person in Lithuania can enjoy freedom of expression granted by the Constitution. However, it cannot and should not be used to trespass the rights of others and, moreover, to instigate racial hatred. Penal Code provides that instigation to racial hatred, violence or discrimination is punishable by a fine, arrest or imprisonment.
"When exercising our right to freedom of expression, in each case we should ask ourselves if our words and/or actions can not be understood by other person as abuse, instigatig intolerance, hatred or violence against this person or against a group to which he or she belongs ? How would I feel about certain words or actions directed at me? ” – adviced Jolanta Samuolyte.
See more about the conference (in Lithuanian) on the news portal DELFI.
Questions asked during the conference are here (in Lithuanian).
© 2012 Human Rights Monitoring Institute