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Today for the newspaper “Klaipeda” – at the age of 75. Its predecessor, the Soviet Klaipeda, was an organism of the Communist Party and the council of people’s deputies until independence. Paradoxically, it was sought to maintain the same status of the newspaper and to be democratically elected by the politician of the port city, even through the courts. In the third year of Independence, this war of deputies against press freedom ceased to have precedents.
“Long live the dragon”
Vytautas Čepas, the then president of the city council, described this story, which far surpasses democracy, in the documentary sketch “Other people’s city. Klaipėda city council in 1990-1995”.
It still has a great mystery about what happened to the politicians of free Lithuania, who suddenly wanted the former Communist Party body to automatically become a Klaipeda City Council body, which would sing the perfect decisions of the already elected councilors. democratically and their impeccable personalities.
“The dragon is dead, the dragon is alive”, V. Čepas briefly summed up the widespread madness of politicians at that time, when in 1993 the analysis of the Klaipėda newspaper’s content and its deliberations dismissed its editor Antanas Stanevičius as soon as possible.
“After the restoration of the Lithuanian state, the editorial office of Klaipėda became the state and the republican economic association Periodika entered the register of the Klaipėda Municipal Board. The city council understood this as gaining control and control of the newspaper . As expected, the Communist Party will control it. “, – considered A. Stanevičius.
Great desire to control
This opinion was held by the majority of the council members, although they were elected in free and democratic elections.
And the most painful article for them was the correspondent for the newspaper Aldas Vabuolas, which sheds light on the work of the city council.
“A bit ironic, with a considerable dose of humor, the attitude of some councilors who loved to talk about all the issues under discussion, the angry mockery of the ‘urapatriots’, the righteous and the moralists – almost everything It could be attributed to the journalist, confirmed V.Čepas.
“Rakštis”: The writings of the journalist A.Vabuolas provoked most of the disputes between the politicians of the city. / Photo by Vytautas Liaudanskis
And even when A. Vabuolas was replaced by another journalist, the attitude of the councilors towards the newspaper did not improve.
According to A. Stanevičius, the editor of the newspaper at the time, even if he had wanted to, the council would not have been able to please him, because the deputies were intertwined for various reasons.
Thus, in the middle of the course, the main work of city politicians became the analysis of the content of the newspaper “Klaipeda”.
Words left in shorthand
“The newspaper does not fulfill its functions. It is not an information medium, but an object of propaganda and a kind of fight. The newspaper even engages in forgery.”
“The newspaper promotes agitation work many times even against the interests of the state.”
“Here it is possible to connect with some of these organizations that are trying to overthrow the legally elected government in Klaipeda.”
“I would say there is a crime before us. It is a financial crime.”
“It’s a collaboration with the old system for some employees. A collaboration: you have to say exactly what it is like.”
Solution: To escape the sphere of influence of the city’s politicians, the then editor of the daily A. Stanevičius decided to privatize Klaipėda. / Photo by Vytautas Liaudanskis
These are unpublished quotes from stenographed town hall meetings, which were later made public by well-known people today.
By the way, one of them (a very respectable person) thought that he would have been a better editor-in-chief of the newspaper than anyone else, despite the fact that even his comrades did not take his colleagues’ posts seriously at the time.
Editors – fired!
During all those endless debates in the town hall, the Klaipėda editorial board was able to raise capital from advertisements and established a limited liability company in accordance with the Initial Privatization Law. All the people who worked in the company at that time became shareholders.
The company was registered with the Klaipeda City Council.
Unsurprisingly, the city council did not allow the company to be registered and furthermore forced the board to remove A. Stanevičius from the position of editor.
Position: The majority of the first democratically elected Klaipeda City Council still believed that the newspaper should write articles favorable to politicians. / Photo from the book “City of other people”.
“The pressure on then-mayor B. Petrauskas was so great that he, for fear of being left without a position, took me over and fired me,” Stanevičius said.
It is true that four years before the establishment of the company, four board members approached the editor and offered to privatize the newspaper together, but A. Stanevičius claimed that he had replied that it would be illegal and indecent with the employees.
After founding the company, the publisher, fired by city politicians, legally returned to his post after becoming a shareholder.
Regarding privatization, the courts
However, the city board did not yet intend to register the established “Klaipeda newspaper editorial office”.
“We then applied to the Klaipėda District Court to force the municipal council to register a company established by law. The court did so. The Klaipėda City Council, not agreeing with the decision, authorized the board to appeal to the Supreme Court from Lithuania “, recalls A. Stanevičius.
Then the lawyer Gražina Mauručaitienė, who defended the interests of the newspaper, remembers the history of almost 30 years very well, because it was the first case of its kind in Independent Lithuania.
We were the first to try and get to the front with force, but the fight was not useless.
“The most difficult thing to talk to was with the city council, the resistance was very high, they refused to take the newspaper from their hands. The councilors were of different intelligence, education and some of their arguments on the subject were quite strange. Then there were only privatization started, they didn’t want city property. We went to the Supreme Court with that case, it was the first of its kind, “said G. Mauručaitienė.
Finally, the city council was forced to register the company “Klaipėda Newspaper” and pay a solid compensation to A. Stanevičius for forced absenteeism.
The shameful steps of the Democrats
The vote to appeal to the Supreme Court of Lithuania became one of the most embarrassing episodes in the history of the first democratically elected Klaipeda City Council.
The facsimile of the roll call vote of the debate on the appeal of the results of the judicial decision is published in the book by V. Čepas “City of other people”.
This document shows that 22 politicians sought to keep the newspaper in the hands of the municipality, 4 abstained, 12 opposed.
Victory: G.Mauručaitienė, a lawyer representing the newspaper in cases against city politicians, was victorious. / Photo by Vytautas Petrikas
“Paradoxically, even so many years later, some former councils still think that the privatization of the newspaper was the biggest mistake. Think about how people’s consciences are accused that the press has to belong to someone in order to regulate the way they write. “There were a lot of people, including liberals and democrats. I am still surprised by this,” said V. Čepas.
The day after the vote, in protest of such behavior by MPs and attempts by politicians to introduce censorship, the front pages of Klaipeda and Western Express were published in blank, without any text.
Fighting is not useless
Judita Simonavičiūtė was one of the few politicians who at that time ensured that the Klaipėda District Court decision had to be complied with and voted against going to the Supreme Court to keep the newspaper in the hands of the municipality.
“I am a liberal person, in my opinion, there is no need to show principles, we have to follow the law. If such was a judicial decision, what else is needed? In my opinion, the press should be in private hands, because it is an expression of democracy, “said Simonavičiūtė.
What if the court decision had been unfavorable for the newspaper?
A. Stanevičius is convinced that for some time it would have been a state company and would have become the spokesperson for some political group.
“But the council changed, it would have been like a dung rope. The fight for a newspaper that was very noisy not only in Lithuania but also abroad encouraged the supreme government of the country to release all the newspapers in the city and district of city councils and allowed companies to be established and “We were the first to try without realizing it and we got to the front, but the fight was not in vain,” said A. Stanevičius.
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