About a dozen activists staged a protest outside the Lithuanian government’s office in Vilnius to draw attention to policies towards migrants and asylum seekers.
The picket on Kudirkos Square was organised to coincide with a cabinet meeting on Wednesday afternoon. Participants called on the government to reconsider its policy and to provide opportunities for all migrants to integrate into the Lithuanian society, regardless of the status of their asylum application.
“We want to encourage and make recommendations for a sustainable, fair, and human rights-respecting integration and asylum policy,” Vuk Vukotič, an organiser of the picket and a volunteer with the Sienos Grupė (Border Group), told BNS.
Several thousand irregular migrants, mostly from the Middle East and Africa, arrived in Lithuania last summer via Belarus. The Lithuanian government termed them “hybrid attack” orchestrated by the Belarusian government to expert pressure on the EU and put the migrants in accommodation facilities from where they were not allowed to leave for almost a year.
Read more: Lithuania to stop detention of migrants, allow asylum seekers to work
Recently, however, the Interior Ministry said that the migrants would be allowed to leave the facilities.
The protesters’ main demand was that migrants be allowed to live and work in Lithuania.
“The main request and offer is [that the migrants] be allowed to live and work in Lithuania, which would come with many other social guarantees,” said Emilija Švabaitė, one of the volunteers of the Sienos Grupė.
“All people, regardless of their status, if they are in Lithuania, need to be given the opportunity to work and support themselves,” stressed Vukotič.
The rally participants chanted “I’m fed up with the racist state” and “concentration camps are money laundries”.
Sienos Grupė earlier noted that less than 1 percent of applicants were granted asylum in Lithuania, while the rates in most Western European countries were between 20 and 30 percent.
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