She spoke this way after the Seimas formed a temporary investigation commission last week to find out whether there are grounds to start impeachment against a member of the Mixed Seimas Group, members of the opposition factions refused to work on the commission.
“I would not agree that it should be left only to law enforcement – anti-Semitic statements are political enough and it is worth giving them a political assessment,” A. Skaisgirytė told Žinių radio on Tuesday.
She emphasized that President Gitanas Nausėda has previously expressed a position regarding these statements.
“These evaluations are given by the highest leaders of Lithuania. Actually, it is probably a law enforcement matter now, – said A.Skaisgirytė. “How much other members of the Seimas should condemn or react in some other way is a matter for the Seimas, but it is known that such statements are completely unacceptable in a civilized country.”
She said that not responding to them would send a “bad signal” to the international community.
“In this case, the political field is reacting and it seems to me that we can be partly happy, which means that we are a mature democracy,” said the advisor.
The impeachment initiative states that R. Žemaitaitis’ public statements and posts on social networks are anti-Semitic and incite hatred.
In the assessment of those in power, such systematically repeated statements are aimed at promoting violence, hostility, justifying hatred against the entire Jewish people and provoking social and national discord, which is incompatible with the Constitution and the country’s interests in the field of international relations.
The text of the impeachment contains the following records of R. Žemaitaitis: “It turns out that without Putin, another animal appeared in the world – ISRAEL”; “We, the Lithuanian people, must never forget the Jews and Russians, who very actively contributed to the DESTRUCTION of our NATION!”, “Maybe next time Israel will drop a bomb on the Palestinian hospital, we blew it up because we were afraid that they would attack us <...> I WANT TO GIVE YOU A CHANCE DEAR JEWS OF ISRAEL TO APOLOGIZE TO PALESTINE AND THE EU FOR YOUR DISGUSTING ACTIONS IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY And I will repeat “After such events, there is no wonder why such sayings are born: A Jew climbed a ladder and fell by accident. Children, take a stick and kill that Jew” and others.
The Attorney General’s Office has initiated pre-trial investigations into public contempt and incitement of hatred against any nation, race, ethnic, religious or other group of people.
R. Žemaitaitis claims that there is no basis for his impeachment, he does not consider his posts to be anti-Semitic, and he can support all statements with international documents or historical sources.
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