APPEAL TO PRESIDENT OF LITHUANIA: HE VETOES HOMOPHOBIC LAW BUT IS OVERRULED

We sent an urgent email to Valdas Adamkus, President of Lithuania, on 23 June 2009 asking him to veto an act passed by the Lithuanian parliament that classes information about LGB (lesbian, gay and bisexual) relationships as a danger to minors and limits its dissemination. We alerted our member organisations and supporters and about a dozen of them also wrote to Mr Adamkus. 

The President did veto the law, but on 14 July the Seimas (Parliament) overruled the veto by 87 to 6 with 25 abstentions despite appeals by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the International Lesbian and Gay Association and other concerned organisations and groups.  The law will now come into effect on 1 March 2010.  We are seeking advice whether there is any further action we can take.

This is the text of our message:

Dear Mr President

I write on behalf of the European Humanist Federation, which represents forty-two organisations in nineteen countries.

We appeal to you, in the closing days of your term of office as President, to veto the so-called Law on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information.

While the law passed by the Seimas on 16 June includes many admirable provisions, it would also enshrine in the law of the land hatred of and discrimination against gay, lesbian and bisexual people.

The law would violate your country’s obligations under international and European law, a fact that provides ample reason for you to exercise your veto. 

It also contradicts the joint statement that Lithuania signed at the UN General Assembly in December 2008, which reaffirmed that human rights apply equally to every human being regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

A similar law was passed in the United Kingdom in 1988 and repealed in September 2003.  In the interim it caused great suffering and seriously damaged the reputation of the country. The same results can be expected of your new law if you sign it.

Your veto on this law in your last days before retiring from the Presidency would be a signal service to Lithuania.  However controversial in the short term, it would have great educational effect and would be recognised in the long term as a stand for human rights, understanding and tolerance.

Yours sincerely

David Pollock
President

On 26 June the President vetoed the law, and the next day we sent another message to him:

On behalf of the European Humanist Federation may I thank you for refusing to sign the "Law on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information". We are grateful to you for acting in defence of the human rights not only of the LGBT population of your country but of everyone else also, whose freedom of expression would have been limited by the law. Any restriction on human rights makes the next restriction easier but similarly your veto of this law will make future restrictions more difficult. 

Other interventions