www.lrytas.lt editorial office amends article following EFHR claim

On the 30th of July 2013 webpage lrytas.lt (www.lrytas.lt) has posted an article titled “J. Panka brave against gay men, but not against Polish hooligans”, in which the potential behaviour of polish football club Lech Poznań supporters and the members of the Lithuanian Nationalist Youths Association before the second round of UEFA Europa League match between Lech Poznań and Žalgiris Vilnius, was described.

On the 28th of August, the EFHR submitted a claim to the editorial office of Lietuvos rytas, in which it asked for the title of the above mentioned article to be changed. In the EFHR’s view, the title encouraged hatred against the supporters of the Polish football club, the so-called ‘hooligans’. Taking into consideration the scale of riots during the sexual minorities rally, the aforementioned title could have contributed to causing similar riots. The EFHR’s claim also included the request to remove the following sentence: “On Thursday, the Poles will march from the Gate of Dawn to the stadium chanting, insulting Lithuanians, then will case riots and will destroy property, but J. Panka’s ‘legion’ will standby watching and will not try to stop the stray men. This statement was neither supported by any objective evidence, nor did it materialise. It did however directly encourage hatred against Polish fans.

On the 9th of September 2013, the EFHR’s claim was reviewed positively and the article header was changed to “J. Panka will not fight against the Polish fans” and the aforementioned sentence was removed from the text (http://www.lrytas.lt/lietuvos-diena/aktualijos/j-panka-nekovos-pries-lenku-aistruolius.htm).

EFHR

Translated by Kamil Łukasz Szwarc within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.