Court sets October 22 ruling in Gajauskaitė riot appeal
Tuesday 8th September 2026 on 15:01 in
Lithuania
Šiauliai Regional Court will announce its decision on October 22 in the appeal of Irma Gajauskaitė, who was convicted of incitement against a group of people, attempting to organise riots and causing physical pain, LRT reported.
The court concluded the appeal proceedings on Tuesday after hearing closing arguments. Gajauskaitė did not attend the hearing.
Her defence asked the court to treat the infliction of physical pain against her brother as a minor offence and acquit her of the other charges. The prosecutor asked the court to reject Gajauskaitė’s appeal and uphold the lower court’s ruling.
In February, Šiauliai District Court sentenced the former parliamentary candidate to a final 75-day arrest term for attempting to organise riots, incitement against a group of people and causing physical pain to a close relative. The court also ordered the confiscation of the computer and mobile phone used to commit the offences.
According to the case file, on October 8, 2024, Gajauskaitė attempted to provoke riots by posting a 33-minute video on her personal Facebook account. In it, she openly called for violence against participants in a debate involving the leaders of parties and electoral lists taking part in the parliamentary election. The debate was held in Vilnius at the former Lukiškės Prison.
“Through her statements and their public publication on social media, the defendant consciously sought to provoke riots. She openly called on everyone to join in and come, bringing baseball bats, pitchforks and scythes, and urged them to meet,” Renata Maziliauskienė, the judge who heard the case at Šiauliai District Court, said.
A month later, on November 10, another 15-minute video was publicly posted. In it, Gajauskaitė spread negative and false information about Jews and publicly denigrated Jewish people, crossing the limits of permissible expression, according to the case.
Gajauskaitė was also convicted over violence against her brother in December 2023. The pretrial investigation was closed in February 2024 after she and her brother reconciled. It was reopened in 2025 after she was suspected of committing two new intentional offences less than a year after being exempted from criminal liability.