News

On 16-19 September the United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance Doudou Diène is visiting Lithuania.

The UN Special Rapporteur will visit the three Baltic States on his own initiative.

Being open and seeking to cooperate with international bodies as closely as possible, in 2001 Lithuania issued a permanent invitation to all of the UN Human Rights Special Procedures. This is the first time when this invitation has been accepted in order to ascertain the situation in Lithuania.

The agenda of the UN Special Rapporteur’s visit includes meetings with Speaker of the Seimas Viktoras Muntianas, Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas and representatives from various institutions, national communities and nongovernmental organizations. He is to visit the Roma Community Centre, Tolerance Centre and will go to Visaginas. The UN Special Rapporteur will gather information and summarize it in the report to the UN Commission on Human Rights.

The UN Special Rapporteur is authorised to examine contemporary forms of racism and racial discrimination, any form of discrimination against Blacks, Arabs and Muslims, xenophobia, negrophobia, anti-Semitism and related intolerance, as well as governmental measures to overcome them.

He also prepares annual reports and can give recommendations on education and other concrete measures at the national, regional and international levels, seeking to prevent the indicated problems. The Special Rapporteur uses various sources of information, including the responses of Governments, nongovernmental organizations and international organizations, also media reports and commentaries as well as the information collected during visits to the countries.

The current Special Rapporteur Doudou Diène of Senegal was appointed in 2002 and his second tenure started in 2005.

On 19 September, at 11 a.m., in the BNS press room the Special Rapporteur will share impressions on the implementation of the Human Rights policy in Lithuania and measures applied to overcome racial discrimination, xenophobia, and other forms of intolerance. You are welcome to participate.