Leader of Lithuanian nationalists ready to give his life to stop gay pride march

Ričardas Čekutis, chairman of Lithuanian National Centre (LNC) and organizer of this year nationalist march in central Vilnius, recently told to lrytas.lt portal he would not allow running of “parade by perverts, as the biggest parade in the country”. He stated that “whatever those globalists do, they will not be successful until we stand alive”. Second Baltic

LGL youth is taking part in two international conferences

October will be another busy month for LGL youth which will participate in two conferences. The first one will be held by the Association of Nordic and Pol-Balt LGBTQ Student Organisation (ANSO) in Stockholm from 1st to 8th, and the second one will take place in Amsterdam from 8th to 16th hosted by the International LGBTQ

UK integrates LGBT rights in its foreign policy

A document has been elaborated by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in order to encourage the promotion of LGBT Rights. This “LGBT Toolkit” has been sent to British embassies and diplomatic instances over the world so that they integrate it in their relations with the host countries. The FCO wants to express its

First LGBT film festival ‘Kitoks Kinas’ (Diverse Cinema) kicks off

LGBT film festival ‘Kitoks Kinas’ will take place in Vilnius and Kaunas from 25 – 31 August this year. It is the first ever LGBT film festival organised in Lithuania. Diverse movies event launched a new website for the interest of the wide audiences it welcomes. “There you will find not only  the synopsis of

Kids are openly taught to despise gay people

By Joanna Labecka A short story about dissemination of discrimination-inducing opinions against homosexuals during a religion lesson in a Lithuanian school You might have had some thoughts why homophobic attitude is so omnipresent in Lithuanian society. Is this a merit of ‘traditional values’ or maybe the influence of the widespread political discourse soaked through by

MEPs welcome Lithuania’s new progressive law on advertising

2011 07 11 A new Law on the Provision of Information to the Public came into force on 30 June, outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation. Previous drafts of the law had included a ban on mentioning homosexuality, but the Lithuanian Parliament made a volte-face and rejected these proposals. The draft text examined earlier in the

On 1 July 2011 representatives of the Lithuanian organisations active in the area of human rights gathered for a meeting with the representatives of the US State Department including Mike Posner, Assistant Secretary to the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and his deputies Daniel Baer and Thomas Melia. At the meeting, which took place

Harassment on the grounds of gender and sexual orientation is the most widely spread type of harassment both among students and lecturers. These results were revealed by the study entitled ‘Multiple discrimination in higher education’ conducted upon the initiative of the Lithuanian Union of Students with support of Dutch Embassy in Vilnius. Students of 20

Today, the Council of Europe launches its socio-legal report on discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity. This is the first ever report covering all 47 member states of the Council of Europe on a range of human rights issues that are pertinent to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) people: attitudes

From ban to protection: sexual orientation discrimination prohibited in ads

Lithuanian Parliament responded to the call of LGL and other human rights groups to ensure that public information serves to enhance equality, tolerance and respect for human rights for all, including LGBT people and to scrap the discriminatory provision banning any manifestation of sexual orientation in TV and radio ads. The amended Article 39 of the Law

On 17 May, the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO), Viviane Reding, the Vice President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, meet with ILGA-Europe’s secretariat and representatives of ILGA-Europe memberships and LGBTI communities: Eduardas Platovas and Vladimir Simonko from Lithuanian Gay League, Kaisa, a Finnish national who feature

National equality body draws a line between “LGB” and “T”

Recently the Human Rights Committee of the Seimas (Lithuanian Parliament) discussed the annual report (for 2010) of the office of the Equal Opportunities Ombudsman and the appeal by the Lithuanian Gay League to the Equal Opportunities Ombudsman ‘On implementation of Gender Recast Directive (2006/54/EC) with respect to transgender people.’ Vladimir Simonko, Chairman of the Lithuanian