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
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 the 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 found are then reviewed to ensure accuracy.
In order to obtain the 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 done and the received data are 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. There is no special instruction or policy document that governs the hate crime data collection process. 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.
Official Data
| Year | Hate crimes recorded by police | Prosecuted | Sentenced | About these data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 7 | 4 | 2 | |
| 2017 | 9 | 4 | 3 | |
| 2016 | 20 | 6 | 7 | |
| 2015 | 24 | 5 | 4 | |
| 2014 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
National developments
The Ministry of the Interior has co-ordinated the implementation of an EU-funded project to strengthen effective investigation, prosecution and adequate sentencing of hate crimes and address under-reporting. The Prosecutor’s Office is a partner in the project.
International reports
Racism and xenophobia
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The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) published relevant recommendations in its "Conclusions on the implementation of the recommendations in respect of Lithuania."
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The Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers published relevant recommendations in its "Resolution on the implementation of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities by Lithuania."
Key observation
ODIHR observes that Lithuania has not made public reliable data and statistics on hate crimes.
