Lithuania: ‘Discriminated Poles, Russians, Belarusians’ urge to found Vilnius People's Republic
Arvydas Anušauskas, member of the Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TS-LKD) group in the parliament, addressed Lithuania’s Prosecutor General’s Office over a seemingly separatist Facebook page. The MP demanded that prosecutor identify the administrators of the Polish-language account called Wileńska Republika Ludowa (Vilnius People’s Republic), DELFI reports.
For several days over 1,200 subscribers have joined the Facebook community.
“Even though this [the group – Belsat] was said to be a provocation, the law enforcement has not launched an investigation. Because constitutional values – the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lithuania – have to be protected from any attacks, I have addressed the Prosecutor General’s Office requesting to carry out an investigation and identify the initiators,” said Anušauskas.
According to the MP, “the Prosecutor General’s Office must act immediately ‘to defend the constitutional values and not to create the illusion of impunity’.The MP says that even though Russia’s special services’ methods are evident, it does not mean that such cases should remain unexamined.
“We are not ‘Russians’. We are not ‘Putin’s provocation’ and so on. We are Polish patriots, and as we are Polish patriots, we are responsible for cooperation of Poles, Belarusians and Russians in Lithuania. We are striving for throwing off the yoke of the chauvinist Samogitian government that discriminates and persecutes these minorities,” the community says.
The name ‘People’s republic’ is used with a reference to self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republicin Ukraine, the community moderators stress. “The situation in Vilnius region is like that in Donbas before the war, and we have no intention to ignore this likeness,” they say. They ask Internet users not to contact them directly and recommend activities which do not fall within the Criminal Code, eg writing on the walls: “Vilnius People’s republic is yet to come!”
“The first step is always the hardest,” the group’s creators say.
“Our source that spoke on condition of anonimity said that this project is not only online provocation:the number of its real supporters is increasing,” radical Polish news portal xportal.pl reports. According to the source, the plans of establishing the Vilnius people’s republic are becoming popular among Russians and Belarusians who are ‘being discriminated’.
Lithuanian mass media and Polish activists in Lithuania called the group’s activity ‘a cheap provocative act’ and ‘stirring up national hatred’. “These persons should give a great deal of thought to their aspirations and aims. As for me, their actions are nothing but playing off people against others, ” Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza quotes Edward Trusewicz, secretary of the Union of Poles in Lithuania.
