Lithuanian Supreme Court to hear Žemaitaitis antisemitism appeal

The Lithuanian Supreme Court has accepted a cassation appeal from Remigijus Žemaitaitis, a parliamentarian and leader of the Nemunas Dawn party who was convicted over antisemitic statements, LRT reported.

The case will be heard orally. The date of the hearing will be announced later, the court’s spokeswoman Tautvilė Merkevičiūtė told ELTA on Wednesday.

Žemaitaitis is seeking to overturn the decisions of the lower courts and have the case against him terminated.

In July, the Lithuanian Court of Appeal doubled his fine from 5,000 euros to 10,000 euros. The court rejected appeals by Žemaitaitis and his lawyer seeking an acquittal.

The appellate court found that he had been lawfully convicted of publicly mocking, denigrating and inciting hatred against Jewish people, as well as publicly and grossly minimising the Holocaust carried out by Nazi Germany in Lithuania in an insulting and offensive manner.

The court partly upheld an appeal by the prosecutor and ruled that three texts Žemaitaitis posted on Facebook constituted a continuing offence involving the gross minimisation of the Holocaust.

According to the appellate court, the posts did not discuss genuine historical facts but an invented event referred to as a “Lithuanian Holocaust”. The court said Žemaitaitis unjustifiably equated the actions of Jewish partisans with systematic Soviet repression and sought to suggest that Jewish people had also contributed to the deportation and destruction of Lithuanians.

According to the case file, one of his Facebook posts claimed that people of Jewish origin had contributed to the killing of Lithuanians. Prosecutor Justas Laucius said Žemaitaitis had also claimed that the massacre in the village of Pirčiupiai was carried out by Jews rather than Nazis.

The case also examined a Facebook comment by Žemaitaitis responding to news that Israeli forces had demolished a Palestinian school. The court said he denigrated Jewish people and used antisemitic language in the comment.

In December last year, the Vilnius Regional Court found Žemaitaitis guilty of inciting hatred and minimising the Holocaust and imposed a 5,000-euro fine. The first-instance court examined seven of his social media posts and a speech he delivered publicly in parliament in May and June 2023.

It concluded that his Facebook posts and parliamentary speech exceeded the limits of freedom of expression established by the Constitution and constituted criminal offences under the Criminal Code.