Lithuania: Amended Law Against ‘Propaganda of Homosexuality’ – A Poison Pill?

Commentary by Rafael Keller

A new law, dubbed as “anti-gay”, will come into force in Lithuania next March. Initially, the bill was openly discriminating gays and lesbians by prohibiting “public dissemination” of homosexuality.

But before Christmas, after a campaign launched by several gay right groups and Members of the European Parliament, the Lithuanian Parliament passed an amendment to the bill.

The revised law to come into force will now ban the promotion of “any concept of the family other than that set down in the constitution”. Any direct reference to homosexuality was removed.

For sure, Lithuanian politicians were not going to answer to orders coming from Europe but still they had to come up with a compromise as the country is now part of the big ‘European family’.

As is often the case, a compromise does not look good when none of the parties want to lose face.

The changes made to the bill look more a ‘poison pill’ than a real success of the pressure exerted from outside the country.

The introduction of the bill in its initial form was breaching 2 articles of the European Convention on Human Rights: article 10 on freedom of expression and article 14 on discrimination.

The ‘softened’ version – which no longer make direct reference to homosexuality, is still potentially in contradiction with the international obligations of Lithuania.

But this is not the view of the Lithuanian Presidency.

A spokesperson for Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, who initially called for the amendment declared: “The homophobic clauses have been removed. The law is in line with European standards”. Case closed.

Ironically, that is the main reason why this ‘diet’ version is more annoying than the initial one.

As Vladimir Simonko, from the Lithuanian Gay League, pointed out: “From now on, any of our public events could fall under that clause and be banned”.

Or, not.
And here is the real problem. The new amendment that does not openly discriminate against homosexuals and leaves the police and justices to make arbitrary use of the law against individuals or organisations.

As long as the law is not applied against a private individual or an organisation, there will be no recourse to the European Court of Human Rights. This means that there is no effective way to force Lithuania to repeal the law, which in essence indirectly target gays and lesbians.

Perhaps the law in its previous form would have been easier to fight in Strasbourg simply because with its direct reference to homosexuality, it would have been easier to have it unfortunately applied against someone, and, therefore, initiate a legal case.

Eyes are now on the next Baltic Pride planned for next May in Vilnius. Today, there is no indication that the event will be banned.

Gay Prides have been authorised in other Baltic countries in the past – in Estonia since 2004 and in Latvia since 2005, except when it was banned in 2006.

Will the Lithuanian authorities make use of this new law to ban the first gay pride event in Lithuania?

In 2007 and 2008, the mayor of Vilnius banned several EU-sponsored anti-discrimination initiatives.

Russian gay activist Nikolai Alekseev drew a comparison between the law being implemented in Lithuania and one that already has been in place since 2006 in Russia:

“This law is very similar to the one which was implemented in the Russian region of Ryazan, 200 km south east of Moscow, in 2006,” he has pointed out.

“In Ryazan, the law was never enforced in the past. It was just passed symbolically by the local Parliament. The process around the passing of this law in Lithuania is very similar to what we experienced in Russia:

“A political group is promoting itself and you hardly find any liberal forces to oppose it simply because they are either non existing or not liberal enough to defend gay rights,” he points out.

Last March, the LGBT Human Rights Project GayRussia.Ru initiated a campaign against the law in Ryazan. After its activists lost their cases with the Russian justice, they brought the matter to the European Court of Human Rights, in an attempt to make the first precedent at the European level on this issue.

“Our campaign is not so much about this particular law in Ryazan,” Alekseev declared. “We want to get a condemnation of Russia at the European Court and the UN to prevent any similar law passed anywhere, not only in Russia but also in Europe.”

The approach is similar than the precedent made in 2006 at the European Court by the Polish gay rights activists who won against Poland after being denied permission by the then mayor of Warsaw (he he now President of Poland) to stage a Gay Pride march in the capital.

“Our campaign is aimed at delivering a clear message: Freedom of expression for LGBT people do exist in the public place – no matter the audience,” concluded Alekseev.

In Lithuania, starting from next March, gay rights groups will live with possibility of having their offices ‘broken up’ by the police – or not.

■ Rafael Keller is a German sociology student who is currently on a six-month study trip across eastern Europe.

ENDS

Originaly published at http://www.ukgaynews.org.uk/Archive/10/Jan/0301.htm

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January 3, 2010