Petition to the European Parliament regarding murders, torture, human rights abuses, and other crimes in Lithuania

Giedrius Šarkanas
Vilnius

PETITION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT REGARDING MURDERS, TORTURE, HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES, AND OTHER CRIMES IN LITHUANIA
31st of July 2017

Dear European Parliament

For many years, I have closely followed the fight of the EP for democracy and justice. The EP has shown itself as a fierce fighter against corruption, human rights abuses, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide in Russia, China, Turkey, Somalia, and many other countries around the world. Now, please, turn your attention to my country.

I am asking you to take a firm position towards the abhorrent crimes that are being committed in Lithuania. Please, condemn in the strongest terms and call for thorough internal and international investigations of:

1. The recent murder of the Lithuanian police whistleblower Skaista Rakauskienė after her year-long imprisonment and torture in a strict regime psychiatric hospital;

2. The obvious murders of the Lithuanian dissenters Julius Vedeckis, Igoris Krinickis, Žilvinas Šumskis, Kazys Žaltauskas, Vladas Bieliauskas, Gintaras Beresnevičius, and Juras Abromavičius;

3. The use of coercive psychiatry and psychiatric facilities by the law enforcement agencies and judiciary of Lithuania to intimidate, imprison, humiliate, torture, and murder political opponents of the government, independent journalists, whistleblowers, and human rights activists;

4. The violations by the Lithuanian authorities of freedom of speech and other basic rights and freedoms of political opponents, independent journalists, whistleblowers, and human rights activists, the persecutions of them for their critical attitudes towards the government or its policies;

5. The glorification of the post-war Lithuanian terrorists by the authorities of Lithuania, the absence of investigation into their obvious crimes against humanity whose victims were thousands of civilians, including even little children;

6. The blatant embezzlement of the financial support that the Lithuanian authorities are receiving from the EU and using for the benefit of small groups of people close to the Lithuanian Government, which has resulted in social inequality and public discontent in Lithuania having risen to truly African levels.

Please, do not discriminate Lithuania and Lithuanians and react firmly to those above-mentioned crimes like you have reacted to the genocide and war crimes in Turkey and Somalia, the murders of Magnitsky, Politkovskaya, Nemtsov, and others, to the imprisonment of Savchenko and Xiaobo, to human rights abuses in many other countries around the world.

I have taken the text of the resolution of the EP on the murder of Anna Politkovskaya and used it as the blueprint to draft a motion for resolution on the crimes committed by the Lithuanian authorities. Please, consider using it. At the end, I have added brief explanations about the motion for resolution. If need be, I can provide detailed explanations about each of my statements.

Skaista Rakauskienė was tortured and brutally murdered by the government

Ms. Skaista Rakauskienė was a retired policewoman who decided to speak and write in public about the relations between illicit drugs traders and the police in Kaunas, the second largest city of Lithuania. When the police accused her of slander and started a criminal case against her, Rakauskienė fled to Russia and asked for political asylum there. However, her request was rejected. On the 19th January 2016 Rakauskienė was arrested in Lithuania and soon thereafter sent to Rokiškis’ strict regime psychiatric hospital.

Rakauskiene spent almost a year in the hospital. She was placed in one ward together with a mentally ill murderess and suffered from her violent behaviour. Many months of humiliation, malnutrition and stuffy air ruined her health. Rakauskienė received no medical treatment at all; her heart condition deteriorated; she almost went blind.

Rakauskienė was released from Rokiškis hospital (thrown into the street) on the 26th January 2017. On the 4th February she died.

Just before her release from the hospital Rakauskienė was forcibly given an injection of a strong psychotropic drug, that most probably was deadly in her poor condition. Her body was quickly buried in an unknown place, and none of the persons who had communicated with Rakauskienė during her imprisonment in the hospital and had organised public protests demanding to free her knows anything more about it.

It is obvious that Skaista Rakauskienė was murdered by the Lithuanian regime so that she should not speak and write in public about the criminal nature of the Lithuanian law enforcement agencies and judiciary and their relations with drug trader networks.

Why is Rakauskienė considered worse than Savchenko, Xiaobo and Magnitsky?

The European Parliament has adopted solemn resolutions demanding to release Nadiya Savchenko, Liu Xiaobo, and other imprisoned military captives and whistleblowers. Why did you not react to the imprisonment and torture of Skaista Rakauskienė and let her to be slowly murdered by the government? Are we, Lithuanians, considered INFERIOR people in Brussels? Do common human rights not apply to us?

The EP has adopted numerous resolutions that called for international investigations into the deaths of Sergei Magnitsky, Anna Politkovskaya, Boris Nemtsov, and many other well-known people. Please do it for Skaista Rakauskienė too! She was just a retired policewoman and had no political ambitions nor business projects, she just wanted to disclose corruption among the Lithuanian law enforcement agencies and judiciary and their connections with narco dealers. Rakauskienė was humiliated, tortured, murdered, and hastily and silently buried by the government.

Dissenters are murdered in Lithuania on a regular basis

Skaista Rakauskienė was just an ordinary victim of the regime. Just few months before her death, one of the campaigners for her liberation, an active human rights fighter Julius Vedeckis was found murdered at his home in Radviliškis. The police quickly closed their ‘investigation’.

Many Lithuanians who were trying to resist abhorrent human rights violations by the regime, to speak and write about widespread corruption among the Lithuanian law enforcement agencies and judiciary died in mysterious circumstances.

I am asking the EP to call for international investigation into the deaths of Julius Vedeckis, Igoris Krinickis, Žilvinas Šumskis, Kazys Žaltauskas, Vladas Bieliauskas, Gintaras Beresnevičius, Juras Abromavičius, and probably other outstanding Lithuanians most probably killed by the police or other similar agencies of the government. I hope that you do not decide that these Lithuanians were WORSE than Sergei Magnitsky, Boris Nemtsov, and Anna Politkovskaya and therefore have not deserved your attention.

I would prefer the gas cameras of Auschwitz to the ‘treatment’ by Lithuanian psychiatrists

I consider the way Skaista Rakauskienė was killed extraordinary abhorrent. The Nazis treated and killed their prisoners in a clearly more humane way than the government of Lithuania treats their critics nowadays, and personally I would certainly prefer the Auschwitz of 1943 to the Rokiškis of 2017.

Rakauskiene was not the only victim of the punitive psychiatry of the government. E.g. Kazys Žaltauskas, an outstanding artist from Kaunas, died at the age of 49, shortly after his 3-months-long imprisonment in a psychiatric hospital for an ‘examination’, from which he was released already gravely ill, just like later Skaista Rakauskienė.

Some Lithuanians have managed to survive such coercive treatment in Lithuanian psychiatric hospitals. Usually such patients are either stuffed with very strong psychotropic drugs that have tremendous side effects or are kept isolated for a long time without any medical assistance. Their general medical condition deteriorates; the prisoners with various health problems are pushed close to death. Then they are suddenly thrown out from the hospital.

Public health protection in Lithuania is based on cronyism, nepotism, and corruption; ordinary people must wait from 1 to 3 months to see the doctor they urgently need. Therefore, those indigent seriously-ill patients who have no friends or relatives among medics (thrown into the street dopy after treatment with strong psychotropic drugs) are supposed to die immediately, as it happened in the cases of Rakauskienė and Žaltauskas. However, some victims who luckily had friends among doctors and, therefore, timely received the medical treatment they needed have survived, and they are telling horrifying stories. I do not want to write their names here because such people often die in ‘accidents’ or suddenly ‘commit suicides’ in Lithuania, as it has happened to Vladas Bieliauskas and Žilvinas Šumskis.

Please also call for international investigation into Lithuanian punitive psychiatry

The possibility of imprisonment in Lithuanian psychiatric hospitals also serves as a legitimate means of intimidation widely used by the police, prosecution, and courts. If a Lithuanian demands the law enforcement agencies and judiciary to respect his legitimate rights or even tries to sue its members (e.g. policemen who once tortured him), Lithuanian courts are likely to administer him a ‘psychiatric expert examination in a hospital’. If such a person is not rich enough to hire a certain lawyer who could bribe the judge of the higher court, he most likely will be sent to a psychiatric hospital for at least 10 days. E.g. Vincentas Jokimas, a schoolteacher from the district of Kaunas, who tried to sue 4 policemen that had once allegedly physically tortured him, was sent to such ‘expert examination’ as many as 3 (!) times; once he was detained at the court by the colleagues of the persons he was trying to sue and forcibly delivered to a psychiatric hospital. Current Lithuanian law practically entitles judges to send any not well-off person they do not like to a psychiatric hospital just to demonstrate their superiority, and the judges seem to really enjoy this right of theirs.

The possibility of degrading, humiliating, and practically torturing a person via imprisoning him in a psychiatric hospital is legitimately used by Lithuanian judges as a means of intimidation of not well-off Lithuanians. E.g. if a defendant (e.g. an independent journalist accused of ‘inciting hatred towards the Lithuanian State’) decides to exercise his right not to witness against himself at court (this right is explicitly guaranteed by the Lithuanian Constitution), Lithuanian judges threaten him outright with i.a. psychiatric expert examination. If such a defendant nonetheless refuses to confess to the crimes the court wants him to admit to have committed, the judge invites a special court ‘psychiatrist’ who brutally harasses the defendant, intimidates, humiliates, and degrades him making the whole process a continuous torture for the defendant.

The highest Lithuanian judicial authority for such cases has recently stated that such practices–threatening the defendant with a psychiatric examination if he refuses to abstain from his procedural rights; ordering a psychiatrist to harass such a non-compliant defendant at the court hearing; etc.–are completely legal and legitimate in Lithuania.

Nonetheless, using psychiatry and psychiatric facilities to murder, imprison, torture, downgrade, and humiliate people that the government wants to shut up, to intimidate them into abstaining from their basic rights and freedoms clearly violates a number of international conventions that the EU has pledged to enforce. Therefore, I am asking you to call for an international investigation into the obviously criminal misuse of psychiatry by the government of Lithuania.

Freedom of speech is practically abolished in Lithuania. Please react, for once!

Those Lithuanians who are close to the ruling regime can treat the people they do not like however they want. E.g. they can publicly downgrade and humiliate Russians, Russian-speakers, Ukrainian separatists, homosexuals, religious minorities, etc. Teachers teach their students at school that gays are perverts, cannibals, rape children, etc. There have been numerous calls to beat gays, send them to a psychiatric hospital, etc. and the Supreme Court of Lithuania has repeatedly legitimised such practices.

However, the few critics of the government and its principal politics that still remain in Lithuania are being prosecuted; their homes are raided by the police and their private property is seized; their freedom is restricted; their businesses and private lives are ruined. E.g. the media are presently laughing at and mocking Vaidas Lekstutis, the organiser of a popular and successful resistance movement against the government’s plans to start slate gas mining in Lithuania, who has been recently sentenced to 100 hours of public works and thus publicly humiliated for a couple of his statements that sound childishly innocent compared to the everyday shameless mockery and humiliation of various exposed minorities by the protagonists of the regime.

Now 3 political opponents of the regime Oleg Titorenko, Žilvinas Razminas, and Giedrius Grabauskas are being prosecuted for their calls to peacefully oppose the introduction of the euro as the national currency and deployment of NATO’s troops in Lithuania. Although foreign military bases are utterly forbidden by Article 137 of the formally valid Constitution of Lithuania, any public protests against them are declared anti-state action. As far as I know, the homes of all the Lithuanians who have ever appeared in public with posters showing their negative attitude towards Lithuania’s NATO membership or deployment of foreign troops in Lithuania have been raided and many of their valuable private items (computers, cameras, etc.) have been confiscated by the police. The media have described the considerable financial losses of such people with a jubilation clearly intended to scare Lithuanians off expressing any opinions not approved by the government.

Formally, criticising the government or its policies is not forbidden in Lithuania. However, many critics of the government are fiercely persecuted and formally charged; their homes are raided and property is confiscated by the police; their health and lives are undermined by many years of prosecution, countless police inquiries, court hearings, harassment by court psychiatrists, etc. As the main expert of the government on such matters Laimutis Laužikas has unambiguously explained at a court hearing, ‘harsh criticism of the government and its policies incites hatred towards the Lithuanian State, hence also towards Lithuanians, the founders of the State, as an ethnic group.’ Any independent opinion or religious belief can be interpreted by the Lithuanian law enforcement agencies and judiciary as offensive and humiliating people with mainstream political opinions and religious beliefs. According to Laužikas, even such a phrase as, ‘men are already discriminated in Lithuania,’ is hate speech as it ‘incites hatred towards women.’ So any criticism of any governmental policies can be and often is interpreted as hate speech by the Lithuanian police, prosecution and courts although they all brazenly ignore the utterly racist mockery and calls for violence against native speakers of Russian, Gypsies, homosexual people, religious minorities, and other truly vulnerable social groups.

Please react and press the Lithuanian regime to allow its critics to enjoy at least the basic human rights and freedoms formally guaranteed by the basic international and European conventions. Long years of police raids, prosecution, limited freedom, intimidation, humiliation and harassment destroy their lives no matter the final court sentence.

Accomplices of Nazis and perpetrators of crimes against humanity are worshipped in Lithuania

At the end of the Second World War, the retreating Nazis organised in Lithuania a network of guerillas intended to resist the Soviet Army after their retreat. Later the Nazis supported them by air, even threw down some of their specially trained agents from planes to act as commanders for the guerillas.

At first, the guerillas tried to fight the Soviet military forces; after the end of the war however, they changed their tactics to terrorising ordinary Lithuanians off cooperating with the Soviet government. The guerillas would come at night and beat, torture, and kill those whom they considered ‘collaborators’, often with their whole families. Some of the guerillas got into the habit of defiling the bodies of their victims. Since 1946 the Lithuanian guerrillas turned into ordinary terrorists, just much more cruel and cowardly than those who are now harassing European cities.

As Mindaugas Pocius has documented in his book ‘The other side of the Moon: the fight of the Lithuanian guerillas against collaboration in 1944-1953,’ the guerillas killed at least 8 852 civilians, including appr. 300 children. It is clear that the actual number of their victims was much higher.

Nonetheless the blatantly criminal and pro-Nazi regime that came to power in Lithuania in the Nineties declared the post-war terrorists legitimate representatives of the Republic of Lithuania. According to international law, it means that their obviously systematic crimes against civilians of certain political attitudes must be qualified as crimes against humanity or war crimes without any limitation period. It is obvious that there exists a legal obligation to investigate the crimes committed by the post-war terrorists, to pay homage to their victims and, probably, to pay compensations to the descendants of the victims.

However, the regime continues to glorify and officially worship the post-war terrorists, presenting them as paragons for schoolchildren. Lithuanian courts continue to sentence former Soviet employees who contributed to their liquidation 70 years ago to years in prison for ‘GENOCIDE’ (!). The police and prosecution actively persecute the independent journalists and other persons who speak in public about the crimes of post-war terrorists and call for justice for their victims.

The EP has adopted many resolutions calling for war crimes probes in Africa and Asia, recognised the war crimes against and genocide of Armenians, Christians, Muslims, etc, called for international investigation into various crimes against humanity. Please do it for the sake of the thousands of Europeans who were downgraded, tortured, and murdered by the post-war terrorists in Lithuania in 1946-1953. Please recognise their murders as crimes against humanity (or war crimes if you prefer so) and call for an independent international jury to investigate it.

EU membership has turned Lithuania into Africa

At the beginning of the millennium, Lithuania was a more or less European country: human rights were somehow respected; international law was observed; the media was more or less independent.

Everything changed with Lithuania’s accession to the EU. On the eve of the accession referendum, Petras Auštrevičius, the then head of the so-called Committee of European Affairs, signed agreements with virtually all the Lithuanian media according to which the media abstained from publishing any INFORMATION that could form negative attitudes towards the EU. Auštrevičius in person called the journalists who did not want to comply and tried to INTIMIDATE them. Practically it was the end of the free Lithuanian media. Now there is no significant media in Lithuania that would dare to publish independent opinions on the topics that are tabooed by the government.

A big number of human rights supervision institutions have been established under the aegis of the EU; however, they are staffed by people close to the regime. In fact these institutions are nothing more than well-paid sitting-places for the cronies and nephews of high-ranking bureaucrats and politicians. There is no sense to ask such a ‘human rights institution’ for help if you are not their personal friend or party comrade. Numerous brutal human rights violations and blatant crimes against vulnerable minorities are being continuously perpetrated in Lithuania, but there is practically no reaction to it.

The EU is providing considerable financial support to Lithuania; however, most of it is appropriated by a small group of people close to the government. Embezzlement from EU funds has turned the leading politicians, party leaders, and bureaucrats into millionaires while the majority of population are or at least feel unjustly impoverished. Social inequality has risen since Lithuanian accession to the EU and is continuing to grow. It is highest in the EU, and Lithuania is now looking more like an African than a European country.

European funds are in fact undermining Lithuanian society. That is why I am asking the EP to call the European Commission to establish a special body that would investigate into the huge scale misuse of various EU funds and other financial resources by the government of Lithuania: widespread embezzlement, cheating, obviously criminal procurement, etc. The law enforcement agencies and judiciary of Lithuania are so incompetent, corrupt, and loyal to the regime that there is no other way to tackle it.

Please prove that you are not hypocrites!

The EU has solemnly pledged to defend democracy, human rights and justice. European institutions actively participate in international politics, they loudly criticise various non-EU governments, call them to respect international law. The EU often calls to investigate into human rights abuses and political crimes in Russia, Belarus, China, Palestine, Somalia, etc. Then why does the EU not react to the abhorrent things that are taking place in Lithuania?

Briefly speaking, in many respects EU membership has turned Lithuania into more of an African than a European country. Even the poorest working people are becoming more and more legally downgraded. The Labour Code of Lithuania has changed since the last July, so now Lithuanian employers can legitimately coerce their weakest employees to work as many as 60 (!!!) HOURS PER WEEK!

From Lithuania, the EU is starting to look like a safe haven for most abhorrent criminal regimes and a cradle of human rights violations, social injustice, and corruption. More and more Lithuanians come to think that once a criminal regime has accessed the EU, they can relax and do whatever they want: to plunge into corruption and embezzlement, to brazenly ignore the basic human rights and freedoms, to intimidate, persecute, imprison, torture, and even murder their political, ideological, and religious opponents – as it has been happening in Lithuania since its accession to the EU. Please prove that they are mistaken!

DEAR EMPs! PLEASE PROVE THAT THE FERVOUR YOU DEMONSTRATE DEFENDING HUMAN RIGHTS IN RUSSIA, CHINA, TURKEY, ETC. DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU JUST WANT TO SOMEHOW MAKE YOURSELVES VISIBLE AND TO EXERCISE PSYCHOLOGICAL PRESSURE ON RUSSIA, CHINA, TURKEY, ETC. PLEASE PROVE YOU ARE REALLY CONCERNED ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE VICTIMS OF ALL THE CRIMINAL REGIMES INCLUDING THIS BLATANTLY CRIMINAL AND PRO-NAZI REGIME INSIDE THE EU!

Kind regards

Giedrius Šarkanas