COMMITTEE ON THE ELIMINATION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION CONSIDERS THE REPORT OF LITHUANIA

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination today considered the combined sixth to eighth periodic report of Lithuania on its implementation of the provisions of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

Presenting the report, Neris Germanas, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, said that, while in absolute terms ethnic minorities represented only 17 per cent of the population, they were a vital cultural and civilizational part of the Lithuanian nation and had greatly contributed to the country’s development. Following the consideration of the previous periodic report, the Prime Minister had set up a working group with a view to implement the Committee’s concluding observations. In November 2014, the Department of National Minorities had been established under the Government. The Roma minority was considered one of the most socially disadvantages groups in Lithuania, which was why the national policy placed relatively more focus on Roma issues. In solidarity with other European Union Member States, Lithuania was preparing to accept 1,105 migrants as of 1 January 2016.

In the interactive dialogue which followed, Committee Experts asked questions about the status of the linguistic minorities, primarily Russians and Polish, and wanted to know more about rules restricting employment of those who were not fluent in Lithuanian. They raised the question on the so-called “double genocide”, which seemed to equate Nazi and communist crimes and minimize the Holocaust, and wanted to know about the official position on neo-Nazi marches and denialism. Other issues raised included the status of the Roma minority and the results of the policies in that regard, the situation of stateless persons, and plans for the resettlement of refugees. Experts also asked about the dropout rates of Roma children and efforts to combat trafficking in human beings.

Gun Kut, Committee Member and Country Rapporteur for Lithuania, in concluding remarks, stated that the State party had to do its best to dig out possible grounds and cases of discrimination and should not cite “legal neutrality”. While the number of stateless persons had decreased, the process had to be sped up.

Mr. Germanas, in his closing remarks, thanked the Committee for the informative and productive exchange of views. Recommendations by treaty bodies helped Lithuania assess its laws and policies. Human rights could not be theoretical and illusory, but practical and effective in practice, and Lithuania was continuously engaged in that regard.

The delegation of Lithuania included representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Social Security and Labour, Ministry of Education and Science, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Health, Department of National Minorities, Office of the Government, Prosecutor General’s Office, Office of the Inspector of Journalist Ethics and the Permanent Mission of Lithuania To the United Nations Office at Geneva.

The Committee will next meet in public on Monday, 30 November at 10 a.m. for an informal discussion with non-governmental organizations from Egypt, Slovenia and Turkey, whose reports will be considered next week.

Report

The combined sixth to eighth periodic report of Lithuania can be read here: CERD/C/LTU/6-8.

Presentation of the Report

NERIS GERMANAS, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, said that Lithuania, as a multicultural country, had been home to various nationalities, cultures and religions for centuries. While in absolute terms ethnic minorities represented only 17 per cent of the population, they were a vital cultural and civilizational part of the Lithuanian nation and had greatly contributed to the country’s development. Lithuania attached great importance to the international human rights agreements and obligations arising from them. When joining the European Union in 2004, Lithuania had ensured the compliance of its national legal system with the European Union acquis. Lithuania had recently witnessed intense cooperation with international organizations, and it had been a non-permanent member of the Security Council since 2014. Several Lithuanian nationals were currently serving on United Nations human rights treaty bodies. In 2015, Lithuania had welcomed a delegation of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, and was also completing the third reporting round under the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.

Lithuania highly valued cooperation with the United Nations human rights bodies and procedures, whose recommendations had proved to be very useful. Following the consideration of the combined fourth and fifth periodic report, the Prime Minister had set up a working group with a view to implement the Committee’s concluding observations; the working group included a wide range of Government, non-governmental and other representatives. In November 2014, the Department of National Minorities had been established under the Government; it had become operational in July 2015. The Department was responsible for the analysis of ethno-politics and the development of strategies, programmes and projects; it also assisted representatives of national minorities to fully take part in the social, political and cultural life of the country. A Strategy for the Development of the National Minorities Policy was also in place.

The Roma minority was considered one of the most socially disadvantaged groups in Lithuania, which was why the national policy placed relatively more focus on Roma issues. Four successive programmes for the integration of Roma into the Lithuanian society had been implemented, aiming to address the issues of social exclusion, education and health problems of the Roma minority. The study Situation of the Roma National Minority and Evaluation of its Integration, carried out in 2014, had analysed changes in Roma education, employment and housing during the previous decade, and had shown, inter alia, a positive change in the reduction of illiteracy rates. The new Action Plan for Roma Integration into the Lithuanian Society for 2015-2020 was aimed at resolving remaining challenges, with a particular emphasis on reducing their social exclusion.

The Government proceeded with consistent measures promoting non-discrimination in the Inter-institutional Action Plan for 2016-2017, which foresaw the implementation of educational measures of non-discrimination, promotion of equal opportunities, raising legal consciousness and public awareness and increasing mutual understanding and respect. In 2009, a number of amendments related to hate speech had been introduced to the Criminal Code. In order to increase the vigilance of public officials regarding cases of racial discrimination, a number of training courses on legal acts prohibiting racial discrimination had been organized for law enforcement officials. Hate crimes, including racially motivated crimes, were uncommon, but they did occur. In 2014, 106 such crimes were recorded, a minor share in the country of three million inhabitants.

Mr. Germanas stated that the current migration crisis in Europe posed new challenges for the whole European Union, including Lithuania. In solidarity with the other European Union Member States, Lithuania was preparing to accept more refugees than it was used to, namely 1,105 migrants as of 1 January 2016. A two-step integration programme had been put in place, and a tender for the establishment of integration centres had been published, the funding for which was already allocated in the national 2016 budget.

Questions by Experts

GUN KUT, Committee Member and Country Rapporteur for Lithuania, noted that the Committee would like to see a new Core Document as the current one was rather outdated.

Going through the report, the Expert noted that the Poles and the Russians were the largest ethnic minorities, followed by Belarussians, Ukrainians and Jews.

Were the general budgetary decreases equitably distributed, or had certain areas experienced larger cuts? Were the human rights advisory bodies able to do their work properly under the current budgetary situation?

More information was sought on the status of the Law on National Minorities. Was it true that it was not a priority for the Government?

The Expert asked for further details on investigations and prosecutions of racially motivated crimes. The fact that a very low number of such cases were reported did not necessarily mean that more were not happening, but rather that not all of them were reported or looked into.

What had happened as a result of the numerous strategies and policies in place, which were all a welcome development? How effective were they, the Expert wondered. The same question was asked regarding the Roma strategies.

Could details be provided on the representation of minorities in the judiciary and the police?

What was the current situation with identity cards and the issue of statelessness? In absolute terms, there were not that many Roma without identity cards, which meant that the problem should be easier to solve.

The number of Roma children in secondary schools seemed to be dropping. Were two additional posts of assistant teachers enough to meet the needs?

There had been some 3,800 stateless people in Lithuania in 2014, a drop of only 1,000 compared to five years earlier. More could have been done in that regard, the Expert commented.

The issue of ultranationalist marches and the related hate speech was also raised.

The Expert asked about linguistic issues related to the Russian and Polish ethnic minorities, as well as the issue of a unified language exam at the end of secondary school.

More concrete information was requested about the planned integration of refugees and the expected future numbers.

An Expert asked why the number of ethnic Lithuanians had been constantly decreasing over the past quarter of the century.

Another Expert praised the State party’s action plan on the Durban document.

He asked about the responsibilities and the authority of the Inspector of Journalist Ethics, in case of hate speech in the media.

Was nationality understood in the terms of citizenship, or did it refer to ethnicity? Clarification was sought on a possible existence of conceptual differences.
Linguistic discrimination was prohibited, stressed the Expert and asked about the insistence on the knowledge of the Lithuanian language to be eligible to work in the labour market. Offering Lithuanian language courses was not enough, and further efforts ought to be made to ease the access of minorities to the labour market. What was being done to help Roma enter the labour market?

Access of the minorities to the police and the judiciary, as well as to various areas of public life, was also raised. A question was asked about the disaggregated figures.

Was the reduction in race-related crimes related to the new way of interpreting jurisprudence in that area, another Expert asked?

What was the relation between the Ombudsman for Equal Opportunities and the National Human Rights Institution, and what were the exact responsibilities of the Ombudsman?

An Expert wanted to hear more about the Roma Integration Plan and the concrete results achieved so far. How did the State party plan to address the intersectional discrimination faced by Roma women?

Was there a national action plan against racial discrimination as a mechanism for pulling together various initiatives already in place?

Another Expert asked about the existence of any concrete cases in which damages had been awarded to victims of racial discrimination.

Anti-discriminatory measures in education were raised by the Expert, who also asked about the way crimes committed by the Nazis and the Soviet occupation regime were presented. Could that part of the curriculum stir negative feelings towards ethnic Russians?

The issue of anti-Semitism was brought up by another Expert, who found neo-Nazi marches particularly troubling. What were high-level State officials doing to distance themselves from such activities?

The so-called “double genocide theory”, which equated Nazi and Soviet crimes, seemed to be revisionist in nature. The theory also claimed that the Holocaust had been a respite between the two periods of Soviet repression. What was the stance of the State party vis-à-vis that theory?

A question was asked about the burden of proof – where did it fall in civil cases under the Lithuanian law?

A person could become a stateless person if they worked in a civil service of a third country, according to Lithuanian laws, observed an Expert. He commented that such a loss of nationality was far too extreme and out of proportion.

Were aliens and nationals treated differently when it came to the provision of health care?

Lithuania had not made a declaration under Article 14 of the Convention. How could some countries’ decisions to make their declarations affect Lithuania’s own decision?

Was acceptance of only 1,000 refugees considered sufficient, asked the Expert?

Another Expert also raised the issue of the existence of the National Human Rights Institution in line with the Paris Principles.

What did the State party mean when it said that international law was integrated with domestic law? Was it that in some cases international law was implemented and not so in others?

Regarding refugees, an Expert asked how Lithuania had developed its policy and how the selection of refugees had taken place. How had the figure of 1,105 refugees been reached?

Replies by the Delegation

Regarding minorities, the delegation stressed that the issue of minorities was placed high on the Government’s agenda. All national minorities were of special importance to the country, which was demonstrated through the Department of National Minorities. Laws of the country prohibited discrimination on any grounds.

The Law on National Minorities was taking time because the Government wanted to settle it in a manner acceptable to all interested parties and in line with the Constitution. A draft of the law had been submitted in 2013 and had been discussed in Parliament. Parliament would consider it in the upcoming spring session, and it was up to the Members of Parliament to decide on how to proceed.

A delegate explained that the Department of National Minorities was still small, with only 14 staff members. It had two sections: one on political processes and information monitoring and the other one on national communities and issues related to them. The budget was now over one million euros. A programme on the Roma focused on teaching the Lithuanian language to the Roma, as a path to integration and employment. Upholding national cultures and languages was another pillar in the work of the Office.

Since Lithuania had become independent in 1990, there had been schools using languages of national minorities to educate children from minority communities. Those languages, among others, included Polish, which was taught in 51 schools, and Russian, taught in 34 schools. The national minority schools had to strengthen the teaching of the Lithuanian language, and measures had been taken in that regard. In 2015, a third class of students had sat for the unified language exam, which was offered under very similar conditions in Lithuanian, Russian and Polish language schools.

Everybody who spoke the Lithuanian language had access to the labour market and was protected by law, a delegate said.

Access to health care in Lithuania was provided to all residents, regardless of their ethnicity; the compulsory health insurance system guaranteed coverage to all residents.

The Law on Civil Service provided the following requirements: citizenship of Lithuania, knowledge of Lithuanian, minimum age of 17 and maximum age of 65, plus necessary education and skills. Ethnicity was not taken into consideration. Ethnic statistics on the civil service, including the police, were not kept.

Establishment of a National Human Rights Institution had been discussed for years and was still being considered, a delegate said. A human rights bureau within the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s Office already performed many functions that such an institution would perform. A working group in the Parliament had been set up to review and amend the draft Law on the Parliamentary Ombudsman by assigning the functions of the national human rights institution to the Ombudsman’s Office.

Currently, the Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson’s Office had 14 employees, and a recent survey had shown that the Office was well known and reliable. Its funding was stable and was deemed as sufficient. Every year the Office undertook awareness-raising activities.

Finding a balance between freedom of expression and preventing incitement of hatred was sometimes hard. The Office of the Inspectorate of Journalist Ethics was actively engaged on that issue. Freedom of expression was incompatible with criminal actions, including incitement to racist hatred. There were not many cases of hate speech by journalists, but the situation changed when one looked at the internet, including social media. In the last three years, the Office had conducted 251 examinations of public information content and had identified a number of cases of racist or nationalist hatred or harassment. In most cases, such harassment had been directed against persons of Russian, Ukrainian and Polish ethnicity. Lithuania struggled with hate speech, especially when it was made by anonymous persons or came from abroad.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office had the function of leading judicial investigations and bringing cases to courts. Over the past three years, 399 criminal cases had been launched on the basis of the violation of the right to equality and freedom of conscience. The courts had found guilty 124 persons. Sentences applied by the courts had mostly been financial; only in a few cases, which included national or ethnic enmity, had perpetrators been sentenced to custodial sentences of up to two years.

Criminal liability existed for those groups whose purpose was to discriminate against people or incite enmity against them. Marches mentioned by some Committee Members had been organized not by readily identifiable racist groups, but rather by individuals with such tendencies, and had been joined by patriotic people celebrating different holidays. It would be a mistake to say that those entire events had been organized on a racist basis.

Regarding the question on terminology, a delegate informed that the Criminal Code was in line with international norms when distinguishing “national” from “ethnic”.

There had been quite a lot of training programmes for prosecutors and police in recent years. Such training was conducted on the basis of the caseload on the European Court of Human Rights, and those in attendance were educated on how to identify and treat discrimination, and how courts should deal with racist hatred, including hate speech.

Those who wished to enter police forces were trained in the Police Academy, where they were trained in human rights. Police officers were also trained on improving their inter-cultural competences.

An example was given from 2013, when a Nigerian student had been beaten up on the street. The perpetrator had been arrested and it was established that the crime had been carried out without an obvious motive. Not all crimes which seemed to be racist in nature were such in reality.

On the phenomenon of marches, another delegate added that those should be assessed within the context of freedom of expression and assembly. There were, of course, limits to those freedoms. It was not uncommon that some of those marches, which ended up being racist, led to arrests. The State expressed zero tolerance to racist propaganda. Freedom of assembly could function only if conditions were created for both demonstrations and counter-demonstrations, which was often the case in Lithuania.

In 2009, there had been more than 4,800 stateless persons in Lithuania, but there was a stable trend to reduce those numbers. In 2015, their number stood at 0.11 per cent of the total population. The Law on Citizenship had been changed, so as to allow stateless persons to receive naturalization in a simplified way. A citizenship could be withdrawn if a person had provided wrong information to get citizenship or had acquired citizenship unlawfully. Lithuania had ratified the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

Within Lithuania, citizens or foreigners had to have valid identity cards. Foreigners needed to have documents which proved that they were allowed to live in the country, and it was the responsibility of the individual to apply and acquire such a document. Some individuals failed to carry out certain administrative actions, which was why they did not have identity documents. Information on how many members of various ethnic groups had identification papers was not kept.

Responding to the questions on Roma, the delegation informed that a survey had been carried out to assess the situation of that minority and the effectiveness of various Roma programmes. The number of illiterate persons had significantly decreased, while the number of those attending different levels of education had grown. The percentage of Roma making their living from informal sectors had gone down. Awareness-raising campaigns had led to the decrease of the percentage of those who would not want to live next to Roma to 58 per cent. Efforts were being made to empower Roma women and prevent early marriages.

According to the population census, 93 per cent of Roma had the citizenship of Lithuania, while only some 55 persons did not have citizenship of Lithuania or any other country, but even they had either a temporary or permanent residence permit.

The 2015-2020 Roma Integration Plan had a comprehensive monitoring mechanism with 26 measures serving as indicators, the details of which could be found online. The 2015 survey on Roma was not very representative as some of the most educated and well off Roma had not been covered.

On refugees, the delegation stressed that the topic was very sensitive for all European Union Member States. The European Commission had taken a number of criteria into consideration when deciding on the distribution quota, based on which Lithuania would accept 1,105 refugees over the next two years. Each year, Lithuania granted international protection to some 150 foreigners.

A delegate explained that ratified international treaties, including on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, formed part of the legal system of Lithuania. Ratified and non-ratified treaties alike had priority over domestic law. In some cases it was necessary to adopt legislation to make the operation of adopted treaties smoother.

The general rule of civil procedures was that the plaintiff had to prove circumstances on which they relied. The burden of proof, exceptionally, shifted in cases of discrimination.

Citizens of Lithuania could look for redress locally and internationally, through European and universal instances, if domestic remedies had been exhausted.

Migrants were treated equally when it came to health care, accommodation and social services, but Lithuania had not been able to ratify the Convention on Migrant Workers.

A delegate said that Lithuania had lost a lot of people due to both communism and Nazism; the country had lost 90 per cent of its Jewish population in World War II. Today Lithuania enjoyed very good relations with Israel, and cases of anti-Semitism were very rare. Currently, there were less than 5,000 Jews in Lithuania.

The issue of writing of names was currently before Parliament.

Follow-up Questions by Experts

An Expert raised the issue of intersectionality and asked about the absence of a comprehensive law on human trafficking.

He asked for more details on the dropout rates of Roma children.

Another Expert reiterated his question on the failure of Lithuania to accept Article 14 of the Convention.

Public social workers needed to reach out to Roma communities and inform them about pathways to receiving identity documents, the Expert stressed.

If there was a contradiction between the Convention and a law, which one prevailed?

The State party had to present statistical data on the situation of its minorities.

An Expert commented that it seemed that “patriotic marches” were regularly hijacked by neo-Nazis and skinheads. Marshall of those marches reportedly wore white bands which had been worn by Nazi collaborators. More specific information was requested.

Another Expert brought up the Decade of People of African Descent and asked what Lithuania intended to do in that respect.

The State party could separately consider Articles 8 and 14 of the Convention.

In how many cases had racism been raised as an aggravating circumstance?

The situation of the remaining Karaites was raised by two Experts.

Replies by the Delegation

On trafficking in human beings, a delegate stated that there was an inter-institutional plan to address that issue. The measures to implement the plan were carried out by a number of agencies, including the Ministry of the Interior and the Foreign Ministry. Medical and psychosocial support was provided to the victims of trafficking.

A delegate stressed that international treaties had the priority over national laws. When there was a conflict between the two, the international treaty would be applied. Sometimes it could happen that judges had not had enough training and failed to apply the Convention, but the issue was being dealt with through the training of judges.

Lithuania had not yet ratified Protocol 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights; not many countries of the Council of Europe had ratified it, possibly because there was a need for some clarity to its applicability. Under ideal conditions, Lithuania would have also accepted Article 14 of the Convention.

Education for Roma was not so easy to resolve, the delegation conceded. Some success had been made, albeit slowly. The number of Roma children in schools was now falling, and stood at around 420. In all schools, significant attention was given to providing additional assistance to those children who needed it, including Roma children. Roma did not participate much in preschool programmes.

The main difficulty with Roma in Lithuania was that they did not apply to relevant State organs to receive identity documents. The Law on Citizenship established that children of stateless persons who lawfully resided in Lithuania were Lithuanian nationals.

Polish children did worse than Lithuanian children in some categories.

Racist hatred was contained as an aggravating circumstance in the Criminal Code.

Concluding Remarks

GUN KUT, Committee Member and Country Rapporteur for Lithuania, said that the interactive dialogue was part of an important and useful process, and the Committee would now jointly draft concluding remarks. The State party was under an obligation to do its best to dig out possible grounds and cases of discrimination and should not cite “legal neutrality” instead. Clear-cut data on the results of the efforts of the Inspector of Journalist Ethics should be included in the next report. While the number of stateless persons had decreased, the process had to be sped up. Those individuals without identity cards were also the responsibility of the State, which had to find a way to make them get identity cards. It was one of the areas in which success could be achieved relatively easily.

NERIS GERMANAS, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, said that the delegation had done its best to answer the Committee’s questions. He thanked the Committee for the informative and productive exchange of views. Treaty bodies’ recommendations helped Lithuania assess its laws and policies. Human rights could not be theoretical and illusory, but should be practical and effective in practice, and Lithuania was investing a lot of effort into the improvement of its legislation and practices in various areas.


For use of the information media; not an official record

CERD15/031E