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Cooperation with Communities Vulnerable to Hate Crimes Funded by the European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (2014-2020) COOPERATION WITH COMMUNITIES VULNERABLE TO HATE CRIMES Practical guide for law enforcement officers Compiled by the Human Rights Monitoring Institute and the Lithuanian Centre for Human Rights by the order of the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Lithuania Vilnius 2020 © Ministry of the Interior, 2020 This practical guide has been compiled under the project ‘Strengthening response to hate crime and hate speech in Lithuania’ funded by the European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (2014-2020). Project partners: Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Lithuania (coordinator), Prosecutor General of the Republic of Lithuania and the Office of the Inspector of Journalist Ethics. This practical guide has been compiled by the Human Rights Monitoring Institute and the Lithuanian Centre for Human Rights by the order of the Ministry of the Interior. Authors: Goda Jurevičiūtė (Human Rights Monitoring Institute), Jūratė Juškaitė (Lithuanian Centre for Human Rights) and Agnė Pakšytė (Lithuanian Centre for Human Rights). The content of this practical guide represents the views of the authors and the project coordinator only and is their sole responsibility. The European Commission does not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains. 2 CONTENTS PREFACE 5 A GUIDE TO THE COMMUNITIES OF LITHUANIA 6 JEWISH COMMUNITY 7 History and demography 7 Public opinion about the Jews 8 Expression of hatred towards the Jewish community 9 Important information about the community 12 Organisations 16 THE ROMANI COMMUNITY 17 History and demography 17 Public opinion about the Romani 18 Expression of hatred towards the Romani community 19 Important information about the community 20 Organisations 21 MUSLIM COMMUNITY 22 History and demography 22 Public opinion about the Muslims 23 Expression of hatred towards Muslims 24 Important information about the community 25 Organisations 29 FOREIGNER COMMUNITY 30 Demography 30 Public opinion about foreigners 30 Expression of hatred towards foreigners 31 Important information about the community 34 Organisations 35 LITHUAIAN LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL AND TRANSGENDER (LGBT) COMMUNITY 37 History 37 Public opinion about LGBT 38 Expression of hatred towards the LGBT community 39 Important information about the community 40 Organisations 41 3 COMMUNITY OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES 42 History and demography 42 Public opinion about people with disabilities 43 Expression of hatred towards people with disabilities 44 Important information about the community 46 Organisations 46 COMMUNICATION WITH THE MEDIA 48 RECOMMENDATIONS ON BUILDING RELATIONS WITH COMMUNITIES 49 Contacts of Human Rights Organisations 56 Literature 57 4 PREFACE This practical guide has been compiled under the project ‘Strengthening the response to hate crimes and hate speech in Lithuania’, funded under the European Union Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (2014-2020). This project involved five round table discussions between local police officers, prosecutors and representatives of communities that are vulnerable to hate crimes. The discussions took place in January and February 2020 in five Lithuanian cities (Panevėžys, Šiauliai, Klaipėda, Kaunas and Vilnius) and were attended by representatives of the Romani, Jewish, Russian, Ukrainian, foreigner, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender), Muslim communities and people with disabilities (both mental or physical). The goal was to discuss the hate crime-related experience of the communities in Lithuania and encourage their cooperation with law enforcement in order to achieve a more efficient hate speech prevention, increase the communities’ trust in law enforcement and have the victims better informed on the procedures of pre-trial investigation. These discussions helped to asses, which information on the vulnerable communities of Lithuania is needed most by the law enforcement and the findings were used to compile this practical guide. The purpose of this guide is to help get a better understanding of the communities of Lithuania that are most vulnerable to hate crimes and provide the law enforcement officers with recommendations on efficient cooperation with these communities that would be based on mutual trust. According to the informal definition, a hate crime refers to a criminal offence, the purpose of which is to humiliate a person or a group because of their age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, race, nationality, language, ethnicity, social status, religion, beliefs or views1. Hate speech (or incitement to hatred) is a public communication (spreading ideas, opinions or facts that are known to be untrue), the purpose of which is to bully, contempt, incite discrimination, violence or a physical violent treatment of a group of persons or a person belonging thereto2. Defining hate crimes, human rights experts often say that these are the crimes that threaten the core of personal identity. Hate crimes send a message to the person and his entire community that their identity excludes them from the society, that they are not welcome there and that they are not regarded as its equal members. Hate crimes give the victims a sense of insecurity, create stress, force them to hide their identity and shut out from the rest the world. Some of the victims even decide to leave the country3. The moral and psychological harm of these crimes is enormous. We hope that this guide will help create a better understanding of the impact of hate crimes and that this understanding will lead to building stronger connections with the vulnerable communities in order to give an effective response to this criminal activity and prevent it. 1 Labanauskas, L. Neapykantos Nusikaltimų Pažeidžiamų Bendruomenių Kokybinio Tyrimo Ataskaita, Ministry of the Interior, 2019, p. 7. https://vrm.lrv.lt/uploads/vrm/documents/files/LT_versija/Viesasis_saugumas/Pa%C5%BEeid%C5%BEiam%C5%B3 %20bendruomeni%C5%B3%20kokybinio%20tyrimo%20ataskaita.pdf 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid, p. 82. 5 A GUIDE TO THE COMMUNITIES OF LITHUANIA This part of the guide provides information on the communities of Lithuania that are the most vulnerable to hate crimes – the Romani people, Jews, Muslims, foreigners, the LGBTI community and people with disabilities. These communities have been selected based on the qualitative research, ordered by the Ministry of the Interior and conducted by sociologist Dr Liutauras Labanauskas, and public opinion polls, conducted by the Institute for Ethnic Studies for already 15 years, listing groups that experience the greatest effect of social distancing. Social distance is referred to as a distance between social groups in the society – different races, ethnic groups, religions, faiths, sexual orientation, social classes, etc. Social distancing manifests in prejudice of persons that belong to one group against people in another group, uneven frequency and intensity of social relations between different groups, also differences in education, employment access to public services, etc.4 In other words, social distance shows the distance between a certain social group and the rest of the society. The greater the distance, the more discrimination, negative prejudice, stereotypes and integration difficulties is experienced by the said group. Each chapter of this part contains a description of the historical context, demographical, cultural details (celebrations, important places, characteristic clothing details, etc.) of a specific community, the type of vulnerability and public opinions on representatives of the said community. This information will help recognize hate crimes against these communities, enabling to get a better understanding of how the hate crimes affect both the individual people and the entire community targeted. Mutual understanding is the first and essential step in seeking for a more efficient cooperation with vulnerable communities. Each of the descriptions also includes a list of organisations working with appropriate communities and their contacts. 4 Beresnevičienė, V. Socialinė Distancija, Visuotinė lietuvių enciklopedija, 2012. https://www.vle.lt/Straipsnis/socialine-distancija-88024 6 JEWISH COMMUNITY History and demography The Jews are a religious, ethnic and cultural group. Although historically their identity is closely related to Jewish religion – Judaism – and culture, people that do not belong to this religion identify themselves as Jews as well (e.g. someone born in a Jewish family, although irreligious). According to calculations, there are more than 14 billion Jews in the world, 45 per cent of whom live in Israel and 39 per cent – in the USA5. Lithuanian Jews are also known as Litwaks (Polish for ‘a person from Lithuania’). Up until the mid. 20th c. the majority of Litwaks used to speak a Lithuanian Yiddish dialect, but only a few speakers survived the Holocaust6. Today, more than 2,700 Lithuanian residents identify as Jews7. The Jews have been living in Lithuania and have been a part of our society since the ancient times. According to historians, the first Jewish merchants and craftsmen came to the Lithuanian territory 1000-1100 years ago8. However, the first reliable document to mark the presence of the Jewish community in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the Charter of Brest, issued by Vytautas the Great in 1388, thus granting privileges, which meant that they could practice their religion, engage in various crafts and travel. In 1897, the Jews constituted
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