TV program “Aš myliu Lietuvą” – under the microscope of the European Foundation of Human Rights

TV program “Aš myliu Lietuva” – under the microscope of the European Foundation of Human Rights

European Foundation of Human Rights became interested in a matter of “Aš myliu Lietuva”, which was transmitted on LNK TV channel this summer. Supposedly patriotic in nature participants of the programme and their actions are now not only known throughout the entire Lithuania but beyond its borders, and unfortunately not from the positive side. They aroused discontent not solely among the representatives of national minorities in Lithuania, but also among the Lithuanians, who in majority believe that the show has brought disgrace to the entire state.

A proposal made by the European Foundation of Human Rights to the prosecution division of Soleczniki region section 3 applies to the programme in which participants are breaking up bilingual signs with street names, attaching again only street names in Lithuanian. Participants are not only destroying property of rural residents’ of Ejszyszki village, but also humiliating the representatives of other nationalities. Furthermore speaking regularly about the Poles in Lithuania, they give the word “Polak” (Pole) a clearly negative meaning. The choice of one of the participants to not recognize himself as a person belonging to the Polish minority was repeatedly questioned. Participants in the programme imply that being a citizen of Lithuania of the Polish nationality is something worse, even pitful. Moreover, it was stressed that a true patriot can only be a person who does not belong to any national minority. Lithuanian citizen of the Polish nationality is not worth being recognized as Lithuanian.

The police referred a case to the Court of Soleczniki Region against one of the participants, Malūkasa Mantas, who personally pulled out a plate with a bilingual name of Ejszyszki village from one of the houses, thereby destroying other person’s property. Malūkasa might be punished with a fine and payment of compensation. European Foundation of Human Rights seeks to ensure that under the Article 170 of the Criminal Code (incitement to hatred) and Article 3 of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, which guarantees that every person belonging to a national minority has the right to freely decide about treating himself as a person belonging or not belonging to such minority, and such choice or the use of related with this choice rights does not entail any adverse effects, justice is meted out not only to the participants but also to other persons having a direct connection with the preparation and transmission of a controversial episode of the programme.

European Foundation of Human Rights

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