Lithuania

Lithuania regularly reports hate crime data to ODIHR. Lithuania's Criminal Code contains a combination of general and specific penalty enhancement provisions and a substantive offence. Data are collected by the Police Department under the Ministry of the Interior and the Prosecutor General's Office. Data are not made publicly available.

How hate crime data is collected in Lithuania

How hate crime data is collected in Lithuania

Criminal data are processed in the Departmental Register of Criminal Acts. The Register is administrated by the Ministry of the Interior. The data are provided by police officers and prosecutors when a pre-trial investigation begins or other decisions on criminal procedures are made. The judges provide data to the Register only in cases of private accusation, in which a pre-trial investigation is not carried out and a victim files a complaint and upholds an accusation in court.

There are two types of hate crimes described in the criminal code: substantive crimes with bias motivations (with specific sentencing enhancements for murder, health impairment, desecration of graves or other places of public respect, and incitement of violence); and all other crimes for which bias motivation is an aggravating circumstance that should be taken into account by the court in sentencing.

During the investigation of hate crime cases, officers entering information in the Register will mark a criminal act as likely motivated by race, nationality, religion, language, gender, descent, social status, convictions or views, sexual orientation, age and disability.

When a criminal case is referred to the court, the officer entering the decision in the Register will also indicate the bias motive of a criminal act if it has been investigated. In order to obtain data on recorded and prosecuted hate crimes, a search of the Register, filtered by indicated motives and specific paragraphs of relevant articles of the criminal code, is carried out. The data are then reviewed to ensure accuracy.

In order to obtain data on sentences for hate crimes, a search by a relevant criminal case number is carried out in the Register of Suspected, Accused and Convicted Persons for hate crimes referred to the court. The searches are performed and data reviewed by the Public Security and Migration Department of the Ministry of the Interior.

Statistics on the application of aggravating circumstance provisions in sentencing are not available at the moment. A special instruction or policy document governing the process of hate crime data collection does not exist. Only official statistics on crimes recorded as "Incitement against any National, Racial, Ethnic, Religious or Other Group of Persons", which are mostly cases of hate speech, are published on the Ministry of the Interior's website.

Access more information at the Legislation Online website Legislationline TANDIS Access more information at the Tolerance and Non-Discrimination Information System (TANDIS) website

OFFICIAL DATA

Year Hate crimes recorded by police Prosecuted Sentenced
2019 9 1 0
2018 7 4 2
2017 9 4 3
2016 20 6 7
2015 24 5 4
2014 0 0 0
2013 3 2 3
2012 7 2 2
2011 5 2 Not available
2010 Not available Not available Not available
2009 3 Not available Not available

About 2013 Data

    Data on incitement to hatred cases was also provided.

National developments

The Lithuanian Human Rights Monitoring Institute published a study entitled "Protection of Hate Crime Victims' Rights: the case of Lithuania", which included recommendations for state authorities tasked with ensuring the compliance of Lithuanian laws with the EU Directive on Victims’ Rights.

Incidents reported by civil society, international organizations and the Holy See

Reports

Hate crime against Christians and members of other religions

The Holy See reported two cases of arson of church buildings and two cases of the desecration of cemeteries. Lithuanian authorities reported that police investigations did not reveal a bias motivation in any of these cases.

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Anti-LGBTI hate crime

The Lithuanian Gay League reported two physical assaults resulting in serious injuries, including the gang-rape of a gay man, a further five physical assaults, including an assault by a group against a gay man following his attendance at a gay pride event, two incidents of damage to property and one threat.

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Anti-Semitic hate crime

World Without Nazism reported one incident of damage to a Jewish community centre and two incidents of graffiti, including one on a Jewish community centre.

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INTERNATIONAL REPORTS

No information is available.

KEY OBSERVATION

ODIHR observes that Lithuania has not made public reliable data and statistics on hate crimes.