May 2014 was an important month for Europe. The elections for the European Parliament, which took place from May 22 to May 25 in all the member States of the EU, revealed who will represent us in the next five years within the Union. A number of initiatives have been taken in order to raise awareness on the importance of this vote for every European citizen, as well as on the need to vote for candidates who actively support the promotion and implementation of human rights in Europe. In Lithuania candidates to the European Parliament were encouraged to actively support Human Rights by signing the Human Rights Pledge.
For the European elections in 2009, the turnout in Lithuania was as low as 20.98%, less than half of the European average, while last Sunday turnout reached 44.91% and is just above EU average. In addition to this, the last time results of the vote favored candidates from radical right parties who were not supportive of minorities and LGBTI rights and often used hate speech in their campaigns. This year the situation seems to be better.
LGL, together with LCHR (Lithuanian Centre for Human Rights), built upon ILGA’s and ENAR’s demands to the new European Parliament, and implemented the project Standing Up for Human Rights in Lithuania. ILGA Europe (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association) and ENAR (European Network Against Racism) compiled two pledges to be signed by candidates to the European Parliament. The first, Come Out 2014 European Election Pledge, is a ten-points document which focuses on LGBTI issues, while ENAR’s 7 Key Equality Demands for the New European Parliament is aimed at protecting the rights of minorities and fight racism in the EU.
The idea of the project was born from the recognition of a strong need to raise awareness among Lithuanian citizens on the importance of participation to the European Parliament elections and to mobilize candidates and urge them to make human rights one of their priorities. The first action taken by LGL and LCHR in the framework of the project Standing Up for Human Rights in Lithuania was the compilation of a Human Rights Pledge formulated on the models of ILGA’s and ENAR’s demands. The pledge was sent to every Lithuanian party and candidates for the European Parliament could sign it until May 24. Candidates who supported the initiative promised to follow the eight points contained in the pledge, which all revolve around respect and active implementation of human rights, non-discrimination towards minority groups and refusal of hate speech in any form. You can find the full text of the document here. The pledge was signed by eighteen candidates from five different parties: the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania (7 signatures), the Liberal Movement (6 signatures), the Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats (1 signature), the Lithuanian Peasants and Green Union (3 signatures) and the Liberal and Centre Union (1 signature). You can see the list of candidates who signed the pledge at manoteises.lt/ep2014.
After the compilation of the pledge and its diffusion among candidates, a campaign started aimed at encouraging Lithuanian citizens to vote for candidates who support human rights. LGL and LCHR produced 200 posters that showed well-known human rights activists, celebrities and other public figures promoting a conscious vote in support of human rights. In addition to this, 1000 buttons with slogans such as “I will vote for the European Parliament and you?” or “It’s cool to vote this year” were distributed for free in multiple cities of Lithuania, with the help of various human rights NGOs.
In addition to all these initiatives, LGL and LCHR monitored the language used during electoral campaigns by all the parties and candidates and collected data about the use of hate speech. The result of this initiative is a report soon to be published in English and Lithuanian.
Using LGL Chairman Vladimir Simonko’s words, “with this campaign we were trying to state that we can influence European politics, we can attain more equality and justice. In order to do so, we all have to take our responsibilities, go to vote and make our voices heard. And in fact election results in Lithuania show that candidates which not only stated their support to human rights, but also were consistent in working towards equality and social inclusion in the society were the most favored when voters expressed their preference for single candidates”.
The most successful in these elections were politicians from the Liberal Movement, who support LGBTI rights openly on a party level. Liberal Movement will have 2 mandates in the European Parliament to come, as well as Social Democratic Party and Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats.
The work of LGL and LCHR does not end with these elections. We will continue monitoring the speech used by Lithuanian European Parliament Members, and we will remind them about the promises they made to the Lithuanian electorate by signing the Human Rights Pledge.
Read more at en.delfi.lt.
