The government approved the Non-Discrimination Inter-Institutional Action Plan for 2012-2014, which obliges the Ministry of the Interior and the IT and Communications Department under the Ministry of the Interior to prepare and regularly publish statistics on criminal acts committed on the grounds of the victim’s nationality, “race”, ethnic origin, religion, language or belonging to another group.
Official law-enforcement figures record five hate crimes, including two cases of grave desecration based on ethnicity and one racist threat.
A World Without Nazism reported one physical assault against a man of Pakistani origin.
A World Without Nazism and the Kantor Center reported one case of graffiti on a synagogue. The Kantor Center reported a further case of graffiti on a Holocaust memorial.
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) recommended that Lithuania ensure hate crimes are effectively prosecuted and punished, including providing remedies to victims and conducting awareness-raising campaigns.
The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) recommended that Lithuania include systems for better monitoring and continue training of police, lawyers, judges and prosecutors on hate crime provisions, noting improvements to legislation and the system for recording criminal acts motivated by racism.
The UN Human Rights Council, in its Universal Periodic Review, encouraged Lithuania to further strengthen its measures to investigate and prosecute hate crimes, noting that the criminal law has already been amended to include racial motivation as an aggravating circumstance in all crimes. It also recommended that Lithuania take measures to prevent and prosecute violence and harassment on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.