LGBTQ Equal Rights

Lithuanian Parliamentarian Threatens Violence against LGBT Rights Leader, Accuses Him of “Speaking with an Accent”

Posted on 20 January 2015 by Defending History

H U M A N   R I G H T S   /   L G B T   R I G H T S

by Lithuanian LGBT Rights Organization / LGL

Reposted from the LGL site with permission

◊

On January 18th, 2015, a member of the Lithuanian Parliament (the Seimas), Algirdas Vaclovas Patackas publicly warned the Board Chair of the national LGBT human rights association LGL that the organization is “playing with fire” and that its activities might result in a “black, repulsive and totally unacceptable response” similar to what “happened in Paris.” The statement by the MP was issued as a response to the organization’s humorous suggestion to store 10-litas notes as LGBT souvenirs in the wake of the switchover to the euro on 1 January 2015.

Continue reading

Posted in Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Lithuanian Parliamentarian Threatens Violence against LGBT Rights Leader, Accuses Him of “Speaking with an Accent”

Zeppelinus Issues a New Hate Poster in Vilnius

Posted on 12 March 2015 by Defending History

Latest Poster from “Zeppelinus” Who is Alleged to be High Official at Lithuania’s Economy Ministry

NEWEST EFFORT MOCKS LOVE OF COUNTRY BY ROMA,  LEFTISTS,  JEWS,  BLACKS,  POLES AND LGBT.  SELECTION OF EARLIER PRODUCTIONS HERE.  “FULL DISCLOSURE” — HE HAS ALSO DEDICATED MONTAGES TO DH EDITOR.

“Lithuania for Everyone. But where, then, is the country of the Lithuanians?” The signs read “I am Lithuania” with symbols interpolated, based on the actual sign (center) carried by head of the Union of Jewish Students at last Wednesday’s neo-Nazi march in central Vilnius.

◊

Will the “Human Rights Monitoring Institute” maintain its usual silence? Where are The Bagels?

Continue reading

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, EU, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views | Comments Off on Zeppelinus Issues a New Hate Poster in Vilnius

Homophobic Draft Laws on Lithuanian Parliament’s Spring Agenda

Posted on 24 March 2015 by Defending History

H U M A N   R I G H T S   /   L G B T   R I G H T S

by Lithuanian LGBT Rights Organization / LGL

Reposted from the LGL site with permission

◊

On the 19th of March, 2015, the spring work agenda of the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania (the Seimas) was approved. First, it contains a long list of initiatives seeking to limit LGBT* rights.

Continue reading

Posted in Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Homophobic Draft Laws on Lithuanian Parliament’s Spring Agenda

Member of Red-Brown Commission and Trasher of Yiddish Dissidents is Appointed to Council of Europe’s “Commission against Racism and Intolerance” (ECRI)

Posted on 8 April 2015 by Defending History

O P I N I O N

◊

VILNIUS—Waves of shock laced with the “actual” human rights community’s usual black humor undulated through the different struggling branches of that community this week as the Council of Europe announced the appointment of one of the most multiply-titled intellectuals of modern Lithuania (or Europe), Prof. Dr. S. Liekis, as a new member of the Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (CARI). Professor Liekis is professor at Vilnius University, Romeris University, Vytautas Magnus University, and a crack member of the government’s red-brown commission, formally known by its somewhat Orwellian name, The International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania. The local term “actual human rights” community in Lithuania refers to those who monitor and publicly post on issues, as opposed to those on endless government and EU budgets who are sometimes accused of covering up issues and shirking from anything that is not nationalist PR meant for naive Westerners.

One immediate opportunity presents itself. CARI and the Council of Europe could quickly make clear their view of the Lithuanian government’s decision to allow an SS banner with a swastika to be foisted at the nation’s Parliament (the Seimas) for over an hour on the nation’s hallowed independence day, 11 March 2015. Reports on the day, which funded human rights organizations here generally failed to monitor, in Defending History and on the website of the Jewish Community of Lithuania.

Continue reading

Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Double Games, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Lithuania, Opinion, Views of Prof. Sarunas Liekis, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Yiddish Affairs | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Member of Red-Brown Commission and Trasher of Yiddish Dissidents is Appointed to Council of Europe’s “Commission against Racism and Intolerance” (ECRI)

Purveyor of Racist, Misogynist, Antisemitic, Homophobic, Nazist “Art” is Alleged to Work in Lithuania’s Economy Ministry

Posted on 3 May 2015 by Defending History

VILNIUS—Defending History has still had no reply to its open letter of August 2013 to the Minister of the Economy, asking him to look into multiple media reports that the pseudonymous “Zeppelinus,” Lithuania’s best-known purveyor of hate-popart on the internet is indeed a senior civil servant in his own ministry. The issue came to the fore once again in recent weeks with his “appeal” to the head of the Jewish community, and his latest production following a recent controversial conference (conference report).

The following are samples of his “art” in the service of racism, misogyny, homophobia, antisemitism alongside glorification of Nazism. Samples can readily be found for other prejudices, including anti-Polish and anti-Russian hate. Hopefully human rights organizations will continue to counter such materials, first and foremost by establishing, in partnership with law enforcement, the identity of the purveyor of the hate materials, and the answer to the question about alleged continued high employment in a government ministry. An earlier smaller sampling with full translation is available here. Full disclosure: This journal’s editor has on occasion been a target of Mr. Zeppelinus, too.

Continue reading

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Russian Speakers' Personal Status, UŽGAVĖNĖS (SHROVETIDE), Women's Rights | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Purveyor of Racist, Misogynist, Antisemitic, Homophobic, Nazist “Art” is Alleged to Work in Lithuania’s Economy Ministry

What Did President of Lithuania Say, When Latvian Journalist asked about LGBT Rights?

Posted on 24 May 2015 by Defending History

H U M A N   R I G H T S   /   L G B T   R I G H T S

by Lithuanian LGBT Rights Organization / LGL

Reposted from the LGL site with permission

◊

A Latvian journalist has felt the wrath of the Lithuanian president after asking several questions that “have not been agreed upon.” The president insistently, and rather gracelessly, refused to answer questions about LGBT* rights in Lithuania.

Continue reading

Posted in Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Lithuania, News & Views | Comments Off on What Did President of Lithuania Say, When Latvian Journalist asked about LGBT Rights?

Neo-Nazi Alleged to Work in Lithuanian Economy Ministry Didn’t Like DH’s Report on Vilnius Conference

Posted on 7 October 2015 by Defending History

VILNIUS—The pseudonymous neo-Nazi blogger “Zeppelinus,” long alleged to be the alias of a high official in the Ministry of the Economy (DH still awaits a reply to our open letter of 2013 to the relevant minister), is notorious for his racist, antisemitic, and homophobic images that continue to needlessly damage Lithuania’s good name (sampling at end of article). This web journal’s editor has long been one of his many photoshop and  photofake targets, naturally a source of pride for any and all within Vilnius’s bona fide human rights community. As some Lithuanian human rights activists put it, “If you didn’t make it into Zeppelinus’s sicko gallery, you’re not really doing enough for human rights in this country.”

Continue reading

Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Racism | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Neo-Nazi Alleged to Work in Lithuanian Economy Ministry Didn’t Like DH’s Report on Vilnius Conference

Lithuania Learns Important Lessons ― The Hard Way

Posted on 2 February 2023 by Defending History

HUMAN RIGHTS  |  WOMEN’S ISSUES  |  LGBTQ RIGHTS  |  OPINION  |  LITHUANIA  |  UKRAINE

◊

by Vilma Fiokla Kiurė

◊

The war in Ukraine has truly shaken everyday life in Lithuania. It has, among other things, pushed human rights issues to the background, or reframed them in a strictly military or geopolitical east-west perspective. When information about civilian women being massively and brutally raped by the occupying army reached our shores, a protest was organized at the Russian Embassy in Vilnius. The protest was very similar to the one in Estonia, where Estonian women similarly protested at the Russian Embassy in Tallinn, expressing their solidarity with Ukrainian women by placards depicting victims of sexual violence. They stood by the embassy with horribly blood painted groins and bags on their head. Lithuanian protestors echoed the image. Protesters in Lithuania also brought children’s toys and strollers with them to direct attention to the tragedies of women who got pregnant after being raped. The image was reinforced by “the red pond” because, before the protest, the performance “Swimming Through” took place, during which the famous Lithuanian swimmer Rūta Meilutytė swam across the pond near the Russian Embassy, the water of which had been colored with red dye, to remind the diplomats of the ongoing massacres and atrocities and mass murder in Ukraine.

Lithuanian women activists started organizing various forms of aid to Ukrainian women, from raising funds for mobile gynecological clinics to supplying Ukrainians with hygiene products and pregnancy terminating medication.

Continue reading

Posted in Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Vilma Fiokla Kiurė, Women's Rights | Comments Off on Lithuania Learns Important Lessons ― The Hard Way

The Kremlin’s War on Feminism in Europe

Posted on 23 December 2023 by Defending History

OPINION | HUMAN RIGHTS  |  WOMEN’S ISSUES  |  LGBTQ RIGHTS  |  LITHUANIA

◊

by Vilma Fiokla Kiurė

◊

During the 2020 Seimas elections, progressives in our society and human rights activists placed high hopes in the Freedom Party (the Liberals), which included in its program not only the aspiration to legalize same-sex partnerships partnership, but also to ratify the Istanbul Convention. In consequence, not only many LGBTQ+ people voted for the party, but also feminists, as well as activists fighting against various types of violence. The party not only entered the Seimas, but, very surprisingly for some, found itself in power after forming a coalition with the Homeland Union (Conservatives).

Party and Seimas member Morgana Danielė became a prominent leader in the fight against violence against women and children. She initiated important amendments to the criminal code, such as extending the statute of limitations for serious sexual crimes against children, and enacting punishment for sex without consent. However, her initiatives had difficulty finding their way through the system. Moreover, they were even ridiculed by the party’s coalition partners.

The process of ratifying the Istanbul Convention did not progress either, even with the great efforts of the Freedom Party to put pressure on Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda, who must constantly pander to supporters of “traditional values” and various marginals.

Continue reading

Posted in Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Vilma Fiokla Kiurė, Women's Rights | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Kremlin’s War on Feminism in Europe