Nausėda says religious community incidents may be orchestrated

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said recurring incidents involving religious communities may be organized actions rather than isolated events, LRT reported Wednesday. He said the pattern suggested there could be people behind them who had commissioned the incidents.

“The recurrence of incidents, alleged and real, over a relatively short period leads me to think these are not random outbursts of emotion, but actions whose organizers should be sought,” Nausėda said, according to LNK News.

He said those behind the incidents could include “anyone, including actions by countries to the east,” and urged people to consider who was benefiting from them and drawing attention to them.

BNS reported that in mid-September, a religious book used by Muslims, the Quran, was allegedly burned in public on Etmonų Street in Vilnius. A pre-trial investigation into suspected hooliganism was opened.

Another incident took place in Kaunas in mid-September, when bikers arrived near a mosque during Muslim prayers at Ramybės Park. They played loud music, made noise with their motorcycles, chanted patriotic slogans and displayed a pig’s head they had brought with them. Kaunas County Police opened a pre-trial investigation into suspected incitement against a group of people and obstruction of religious rites.

Nausėda said Lithuania had long been a country where different religions and cultures lived peacefully together, and that he wanted this to continue. He said the government should ensure migration was managed, but added that migration concerns should be addressed directly, not through actions such as displaying pig’s heads.

The president said migration policy should not focus on separating Christian and non-Christian countries. People arriving from a different cultural environment could create additional tensions, he said, but they were not automatically bad people or hostile to Lithuania. The issue, he added, was the overall rise in migration, not particular nationalities or countries.

Nausėda also called on parliament to pass his proposed changes to work permits for foreigners. The proposed model would speed up the processing of applications and require workers to leave Lithuania for at least six months after their two-year permit expires. Parliament approved the proposals after consideration in July; if adopted, the amendments would take effect next year.

He said Lithuania should act quickly to ensure rising immigration did not become a major challenge for the country.