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On Monday, the Polish embassy expressed its outrage at the words of the program’s presenter, former Seimas spokesman Arūnas Valinskas, about Valdemar Tomaševskis, MEP, president of the Polish Lithuanian Election Campaign-Union of Christian Families (LLRA-KŠS).
“I would like to emphasize that no one can be threatened with death, and public provocation to commit a crime is punishable,” Ambassador Urszula Doroszewska said in a statement.
“There is no place for hate speech in the public space. I hope that Lithuanian society reacts correctly. Freedom of expression has its limits when the rights or freedoms of others are violated,” he said.
The prosecution announced on Monday that it had launched a pre-trial investigation for hate speech following an interview with Valinskas. delfi.lt Commenting on the election results, he said that people like V. Tomaševskis should be shot.
“Tomaševskis is a beetle of absolute color who, receiving funding for his party from the Lithuanian state budget, is an anti-state. Anyway, those should be shot. One year at a time. Start with that,” said A. Valinskas.
This excerpt is no longer available in a publicly available interview, but can be found filmed from an online interview.
A. Valinskas, for his part, claims that his words were taken out of context and did not incite hatred. He argues that they should be understood as a picturesque expression.
Meanwhile, the Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT) says that it does not agree with the words of A. Valinskas.
However, they do not comment on whether they will take any action against him.
“Everyone is free to express their opinion, to evaluate political activities rigorously, but those speeches should not encourage confrontation or incitement to hatred. LRT does not agree with Arūnas Valinskas’ speech on delfi.lt, because we assume the position that even a radical opinion can be expressed without creating controversy and correctly ”, reads the LRT comment sent to BNS.
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