On September 28 a webinar in support of the Lithuanian prisoner of conscience Algirdas Paleckis was held by the three members of the European Parliament, Tatjana Zhdanoka (Latvia, Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance) and Mick Wallace and Clare Daily (Ireland, the Left Group). They brought many politicians, journalists, lawyers, political scientists from the EU, the UK and the USA to discuss the tendency of politically motivated persecution in a number of the states, members of the EU.
Opening the webinar, Tatjana Zhdanoka told, “Our event is dedicated to just one political prisoner who is declared to be the political criminal. Unfortunately, it does not mean that he is the only one suffering such a fate. We have to observe a number of politically motivated cases developing in the Baltic states. We have come together to to draw attention to this state of things and raise awareness of what causes it. We feel important to discuss why the activity of the security agencies of the three Baltic states is developing in a way that they are using the charges of espionage in favor of Russia and, sometimes, China to target people”.
Clare Daily stated, “We are discussing the case of Algirdas which is not unique. We, the Irish members of the European Parliament, are aware of other examples of our own historical past and its injustice when people were imprisoned although there was no access to any proofs of their guilt. It is repeating itself now in the other part of Europe. When the name of Navalny is mentioned, it immediately causes loud hipe – or, how awful… When it refers to Algirdas, silence… The same happens in Katalonia when a person can go to prison just because they are honest journalists. It is becoming more and more widespread. The situation is getting more agressive. It goes without saying that we can’t speak about the rule of law and the triumph of democracy in such a situation”.
Mick Wallace supports his colleagues, ”We have little awareness of what is going on in Lithuania but Tatiana keeps us informed. But we pretty well aware of the level of hipocrisy present at the European Parliament. I have never heard the name of Algirdas Paleckis inside the Parliament. At that, deputies keep talking of the horrible things that happen in some countries. At that, the EU is closing their eyes on things which happen in the Baltic states. It is declared to be absolutely in order. However, the presumption of innocence is ignored and criminal cases are just trumped up. The rule of law is not being respeted at all. Human rights are being violated. The EU has gone away from protecting human rights. They appoach such matters in a very selective way. There is not a single drop of evidence that Algirdas spied for Russia. And from my point of view, it is an utter violation of all the rules of the European Union that this case was not heard openly. We must demand this.
We should request an open hearing”.
Algirdas Paleckis was also given a possibility to speak. As his 6-year-conviction has been appealed, he is still under house arrest. Algirdas Paleckis said, ”Solidarity is of paramount importance for us all. The region of the Baltics states and Poland is extremely important as all these countries are the NATO members. However, full information about the region is not provided. And we are trying to fill in this lack of information. My case is not unique, we are talking about a trend. Our governments are ardent defenders of human rights everywhere in the world. But not here! Not at home. And when something undemocratic happens here, they just turn a blind eye to it”.
Algirdas Paleckis shared the opinion that ”there are plenty of people in our countries whose mentality is not democratic. They support the authoritarian approach, they do not understand what democracy is, what the rule of law is. They understand the right of influential parties or influential people. But not of the rule of law. And they don’t even want to understand this. This is the main problem”. Among key problems of this area of the EU, as Algirdas Paleckis sees it, is the police wiring which the courts easily permit. Algirdas Paleckis said, ”If people do not have proper understanding of what democracvy is, then civil society is weakened. We do not have local organizations which would stand up for people. It leaves civil society activists all alone in front of the huge machinery of the security apparatus whivvch have immense funding. Besides, we have weak media. Major media outlets have developed close ties with the government and big business which in its turn is connected to the state structures. In my case they have silenced it disseminating only lies about me”.
Leo Gabriel, an Austrian journalist and filmmaker, said that he saw the aim of the event in ”considering what went wrong and decide what might be done”. He pointed out that it does not concern Algirdas Paleckis’ case only. He stated, ” the independence of the judiciary is a real measurement of democracy. And this is not the case in the Baltic countries. Why? I think this is a sign that the cold war is not over.
We are facing a new cold war. We must not forget that the United States and its European allies control the rules of justice. Little is being said about this. The European Parliament should take the case of Algirdas for their consideration”.
Leonid Bard (the USA), the head of the Assembly of the World Diasporas, is of the opinion that ”all diasporas of the world have almost the same problems as both migrants and immigrants can’t often access what is easily accessible to people born in different countries… When ”the World without Nazism” existed, we appealed to the US Congress, held numerous conferences. We were together. I do not feel this level of unity now. This is the worst evil which exists. We should stand up for freedom of expression but it is possible to do only together. There must be human rights organizations which would lead it as it used to be before”. Answering the question what could be done to help Algirdas Paleckis, Leonid Bard told, ”It is obvious that we should appeal. We should send letters to the state bodies of Lithuania copying them to to the European Parliament, the Congress of the USA. It is necessary to demonstrate that Europe is aware of Paleckis’ case”.
Bill Bowring, professor of Law at Birkbeck College, University of London, stated that knowing of Algirdas Paleckis since 2013 when he was planning to to take the case to the ECHR, he feels important that the appeal stage would be properly monitored. Professor Bowring told, ”It is likely that we will send our observer to attend the hearing. We have been sending observers to court hearings to all parts of the world. I have personally attended trials in Lithuania and Latvia before. Hopefully, there will be a possibility in this case too”.
Tord Bjork (Sweden), the Prague-2 association against right-wing extremism and populism, stated, ”We know a lot about this type of reprisals in many countries. But the Baltic states is still kind of a ”black hole” despite the fact that in these countries many people are being accused of crimes which they never committed… Russian-speaking people of these countries should have been recognized as their citizens which did not happen. What was the reaction from Swedish diplomats? They approved that they do not deserve citizenship as if they had some other type of genes. It happened despite the fact that all these people were born in their countries. We should speak up against such practices of the Swedish diplomacy as well as the European Lefts who refuse to react to these facts”.
Jonas Kovalskis (Lithuania) is a lawyer and a blogger. He stated, ”The situation
with the freedom of expression in Lithuania is very very tense. Algirdas’ case is absolutely airy-fairy. Gross violations of the presumption of innocence are a signal to all other dissidents. Not only in Lithuania. In Lithuania, unfortunately, it is a rather frequent case. The top political leadership gives an order for a politically-motivated cases to be launched. Algirdas is a well-known person in Lithuania who can influence people’s opinions. The authorities decided to show that freedom of speech is limited to what is permitted by the ruling regime…”
