Russian foreign ministery spokesperson Andrei Nesterenko strongly criticized the Seimas bill.
VILNIUS — The Russian foreign ministry attacked the Lithuanian parliament Thursday for passing a first reading of a bill that would criminalize denying or justifying Nazi or Soviet atrocities.
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Andrei Nesterenko told the press that the bill was “cynical and immoral.”
One of the bill’s sponsors, Seimas member Vilija Aleknaitė-Abramkienė said that the bill was designed to match European Union directives on hate speech. Nesterenko called this a “profane and targeted campaign.”
“We hope that the Lithuanian parliament shows common sense,” Nesterenko said.
The Russian government wasted little time to chastise the proposal, even though it is far from being passed. The first reading of the bill was only passed on Sept. 29 and will not be discussed by the Seimas national defense and human rights committees until Dec. 10.
Misunderstanding the past
Aleknaitė-Abramkienė told Baltic Reports that she did not understand the logic behind the Russian criticism.
“I’m wondering because we don’t speak about Russia in this law, we speak about Soviet Union,” she said. “This is very strange and not very comfortable for the rest of Europe.”
Aleknaitė-Abramkienė said Nesterenko’s words were just another example of how Russia is moving away from democracy.
“It’s very bad for Russia. The leaders of the Kremlin, they view themselves as Soviet leaders and are rebuilding the cult of Stalin,” Aleknaitė-Abramkienė told Baltic Reports, adding that instead of criticizing its neighbors Russia should pass a similar law.
“It would be very necessary for Russia to have such a law and to finally start going forward into the future, becoming a democratic, normal country,” Aleknaitė-Abramkienė said.
… i think its terrifying that russia is trying to justify mass murder, massive deportations, soviet death camps and torture, bully neighbors. its drunken belligerence in the most dangerous level.. when will there be a “nuremberg” trial of the soviet regime??? den hague? alot of those war criminals are still active and in ruSSian government now…
Not to mention the countless Lithuanians and other non-Russians who were complicit in these acts. The very idea that it was only Russians running the Soviet Union is very misguided indeed.
yeah it was the lithuanians running the soviet union and non german lithuananians leading all the death squads for the nazis. the russians had almost nothing to do with it… it was the lithuanians who comited genocide in Chechnija and the lithuanians who massacred the hostages in that moscow theater not to mention it was those darn lithuanians who started the russia georgia conflict, and was other non russian lithuanians that turned the gass off to the ukraine, and lithuanians who prevented the central european missle defense sheild. that ruSSofobic western propaganda realy had me fooled that the russian government would have had anything to do with that stuff the fascist devils…