According to a survey carried out in October by the market and public opinion research center Vilmorus, the absolute majority (95 percent) of Lithuanian residents who thought that their rights had been infringed did not report said infringement to any institution. The study was commissioned by the Human Rights Monitoring Institute (HRMI).

By contrast, a fifth or more of the respondents have indicated a willingness to defend their rights in previous years (over 18 percent in 2012 and over 22 percent in 2010).

As said by HRMI Director Dovilė Šakalienė during a press conference on Wednesday (December 10), out of these 95 percent, the vast majority - 66 percent - take no action because they don't think it'll have any effect, while almost a fifth do nothing because they simply don't know where to go.

"We shouldn't engage in self-flagellation, thinking that our state had broken down and any confidence in it had been lost - we ourselves have encountered antagonistic efforts (Eastern propaganda that held contempt for European values) and were harmed as a result. We have to see this, understand it, admit it and move on, concentrating more on the people that don't know what to do or where to go, since public awareness of state institutions that are responsible for the protection of human rights, that defend them and provide help, is - quite frankly - deplorable," said Ms. Šakalienė.

The study also revealed that Lithuanian residents deem the right to a fair trial to be the one civil and political right that is most vulnerable to abuse (average assessment on a 10 point scale - 6.47, where 1 stands for being the least vulnerable and 10 being the most vulnerable).

According to HRMI, compared to the study from 2012, there is a rising trend in understanding the vulnerability of all of the rights covered by the survey. In particular, there has been a rise in the number of residents that believe their most vulnerable right to be the right to respect for private life (6.11 in 2014, 5.25 in 2012).