- August 13, 2013
- 317
AWPL: We condemn the incident in Poznań, however we consider it as another planned provocation
The Polish-Lithuanian relationship improved considerably after the last parliamentary election and creation of center-left coalition with the following parties participating: the social democratic Labour Party, Order and Justice party and The Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania (AWPL).
The bilateral relations deteriorated after some highest-level decisions have been taken by the former conservative-liberal parliamentary majority; among others – abolition of the Law on National Minorities and adoption of a new edition of the Law of Education, which discriminates the students from the schools with the Polish, Russian or Belarusian languages used in teaching.
We regret that good Polish-Lithuanian relationship is not cared about by the former ruling majority, and its representatives habitually escalate and stir up the conflicts in Lithuania, notoriously involving in the process the courts (for example – contesting the regulation of the Ministry of Education and Science) and particular media.
It is actually the media connected to conservatives (LNK, BTV, alfa.lt, Info žinios) and liberals (Lietuvos ryto TV, lrytas.lt, lrt.lt), who heat up the conflict emotions for last six days, because of the banner displayed at the Poznań football stadium. We cannot help thinking that the uproar unleashed in Lithuanian media is not only following somebody’s order, but also looks like it is aimed purposely at stirring up a hysteria in Lithuanian society.
The Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania, a party, which unites the representatives of different nationalities: Poles, Belarusians, Russians, Lithuanians and others, as well as citizens of different background living in our country, deplore this and any similar incidents. We emphasize however at the same time, that this is a planned provocation.
AWPL: we think that continual recalling the text on the banner means fulfilling the provocateurs intentions. And this is why the parties should not react to similar provocations, which are our everyday experience. The investigation is under way in Poland, and the perpetrators will be found. It is, however, already known that this is a well planned and carried through provocation; we experience such provocations quite often recently:
1. There were the boundary signs in Polish and Lithuanian languages painted over in the Puńsk commune a year ago; it was done over one night in many towns and villages located some hundreds of kilometers away from each other,
2. A banner was displayed “imperceptibly” at the often visited Rasos Cemetery with the caption against the AWPL leader W. Tomaszewski,
3. At the Municipal Stadium in Poznań, where getting in with any big object is impossible, a 50-meter long banner was displayed – as the media say – a banner of quite a weight.
The range of these provocations indicates that to carry them away would not be possible without the knowledge of special services. It is then obvious that the escalation of the Poznań incident in the mass media is a planned action, and it is contrary to the Law on Public Information, which says that it is obligatory to inform the society in a objective and neutral way. It is against the same Law what we nowadays witness: a continuous and hysteric dissemination of the provocative and aggravating emotions contents.
The phrase “Lithuanian hick and Polish Master” was – by the way – created and repeated over last 10 years many times in the TV program of conservative LNK „Dviračių žinios“. That fact shows us who the true author of the phrase is. But we still need an answer to the question why the particular politicians and representatives of media did not react in any way to the annoying and provocative programs.
Tłumaczenie by Jadwiga Granowska w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Jadwiga Granowska within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.
