Protesters: "No to xenophobia"

On 26 July, several dozen people gathered in the central square of Vilnius to urge the police to investigate hate crimes more thoroughly. The protest sought to draw the attention of both law enforcement officials and the public to the fact that the authorities in general were loath to register hate crimes, with the victims’ negative experiences being mostly ignored or neglected.

The attending human rights activists and NGO representatives not only urged police officers to take their work more seriously, but also called for them to be trained in how to identify hate crimes.

A petition was also published online, urging officials to not forget their motto, "PROTECT. GUARD. HELP", when hate crimes are involved, to stop tolerating incitement to hatred and to provide the victims with the necessary assistance. The petition was signed by nearly 300 people.

Outburst of hate

The protest was held in response to an outburst of ethnic hatred against a man from Ecuador living in Lithuania. The young man was attacked at a bus station by two people shouting "Lithuania belongs to Lithuanians!", a nationalist slogan.

According to the victim, once the police had arrived, the officers did not provide him with the necessary information or assistance, or even ask him if he wanted to make a statement.

This resulted in no pre-trial investigation being started. For their part, the police claimed that they had tried asking the man about a statement, but both sides failed to understand each other correctly due to the "language barrier". The authorities did not offer the victim the services of a translator, either.

In the face of public pressure, the police publicly apologized for their inadequate response and launched a pre-trial investigation into the possible violation of the public order and incitement to hatred.

Hate as a motive is a "secondary" circumstance

Looking at official hate crime statistics, it becomes clear that in the last 5 years the number of reported incidents of incitement has dropped significantly – from 266 in 2012 to just 17 in 2017.

However, NGOs note that these figures do not reflect the reality of the situation. Hate crimes are characterized by high latency – many hate crimes are not reflected in the official statistics due to technical barriers in collecting the data or due to improperly classifying the crimes themselves.

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