Around 30,000 people gathered in Cathedral Square in Vilnius on Saturday in defence of free speech. Demonstrators turned their anger on both the ruling Social Democrats and President Gitanas Nausėda over proposed changes to the law governing Lithuania's public broadcaster LRT.
For the first time, the rally moved from outside the parliament building to the heart of the capital – a deliberate signal, organisers said, that their message was directed not only at the Seimas but at the Presidential Palace as well.
It was the sixth such protest under the banner Hands Off Free Speech.
Speakers and demonstrators accused the government of pressing ahead with the changes despite overwhelming public opposition. Placards in the crowd read "Freedom for LRT from the beavers," "Free speech – you will not take it," and "Do not bring us Putin's sunshine." Many participants wrapped themselves in the Lithuanian tricolour or carried the historic flag bearing the Vytis, the country's mounted knight emblem.
"What is happening in our country right now is not normal," said actor Paulius Markevičius, who opened the event. "I am here because I cannot be indifferent to what is happening in my own home."
"The authorities are pushing their nonsense and not listening. They do not hear us – as if we cannot see the problem. If everyone can see it and they cannot, that does not mean we are imagining things. It means they are blind," said Dovydas Širvinskas, a 33-year-old researcher who attended the rally.
"I was born in a free Lithuania and I very much intend to remain in that freedom," he added.
Milda Makauskė, 44, said she had brought her son to show him why it matters to take part in such events.
"So that future generations can see that you cannot accept what is fundamentally wrong, and that government must serve the people, not itself," she said.
The bulldozer is rolling at full speed
The protest was organised by a community of journalists from various newsrooms and the Culture Assembly.
Organisers said the proposed amendments were drawn up by a working group led by Seimas Speaker Juozas Olekas, after an earlier attempt to make it easier to dismiss LRT's director general collapsed in December following public outcry.
The new proposals would establish a supervisory board, increase the size of LRT's council, change the dismissal procedure for the director general, and restrict the participation of journalists from other media outlets. Critics say the changes would politicise the broadcaster and strip it of editorial independence.
"We can see that tens of thousands of people gathering in protests beneath parliament's windows is still not enough for those in power. The bulldozer on the LRT amendments has been fired up again and is rolling at full speed," the rally's organisers wrote in their call to action, drawing comparisons with the mass protests that recently forced political change in Hungary.
A symbolic rusty bulldozer, the protest movement's emblem, has been installed outside the Seimas building for the duration of the debate, bearing the inscription "LRT amendments" against a backdrop of flames.
Birutė Davidonytė, head of the Journalists' Professional Association, told the crowd that pressure from the opposition and the public had managed to slow the legislative process this week, making it unlikely the government would succeed in changing LRT's leadership before the broadcaster's council meets on May 19.
"But they did not do it out of goodwill. They did it because they were stopped by opposition pressure – and by each one of you standing here," she said, cautioning that it was too early to relax.
Criticism of the president
Several speakers singled out President Nausėda for failing to take a clear public stance.
"I cannot accept the double standards – playing with one hand alongside those who fired up the bulldozer, whilst trying to act as an impartial referee with the other. He ends up standing there with a freshly licked finger in the air, checking which way the wind is blowing. That is not presidential and it is not statesmanlike," said philosopher and teacher Donatas Puslys.
Historian Antanas Terleckas of Vilnius University questioned whether the government's behaviour amounted to "stupidity breaking through into reality, or brazenness, or a devaluation of values, or some kind of ingenious plan to seize and enslave Lithuania."
"Though we often compare our situation to Georgia and Hungary, I tend to think we are dealing more with malicious stupidity than brilliant evil. Stupidity is dangerous, of course, but it is easier to manage, more vulnerable and less organised. And it still needs to be resisted," he said.
Historian Nerijus Šepetys accused both the Social Democrats and the president of replacing free speech with "natural or feigned stupidity, reinforced by eloquence, lies, omission, distortion and even delusion."
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