Prominent NGO Accuses Lithuanian Authorities of Mistreating Refugees, Racism

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - A major international watchdog on Monday accused Lithuania of mistreatment and abuses of Middle Eastern and African refugees and racism with refugees fleeing Ukraine being received with open arms.

"Lithuanian authorities have arbitrarily detained thousands of people in militarized centers, where they have been subjected to inhumane conditions, torture and other ill-treatment... In a new report, the organization documents how refugees and migrants have been held for months on end in squalid, prison-like centers in Lithuania, where they are denied access to fair asylum procedures and subjected to other serious human rights violations in the hope that they will ‘voluntarily’ return to the countries they fled from," Amnesty International said on its website, adding that "this treatment is in stark contrast to the benevolence with which people fleeing the war in Ukraine have been received in the EU."

The organization noted that it had interviewed dozens of refugees coming from the Middle East and Africa; many of them claimed that they had been beaten, insulted, or subjected "to racially-motivated intimidation and harassment" by guards in the "heavily securitized detention centers." Moreover, the watchdog pointed out that these centers lacked sanitary facilities and healthcare.

The organization added that Ukrainian refugees had been being met with much better appreciation; therefore, it urged the Lithuanian authorities to respect the principle of equality and treat all refugees equally.

"Every person seeking protection should be treated equally and with respect... While Lithuania has rightly extended a warm welcome to tens of thousands of people fleeing Ukraine, the experience of the detainees we spoke with could not be more different. This raises serious concerns about institutional racism embedded within Lithuania’s migration system," Amnesty International Europe Regional Director Nils Muiznieks was quoted as saying.

Muiznieks demanded that the refugees be immediately released, granted access to fair asylum procedures in Lithuania, and reimbursed for physical and mental harm suffered.

Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland had been recording an increase in the detention of illegal Middle Eastern and African migrants, trying to make it to the European Union via Belarus, throughout 2021. The countries have accused Minsk of facilitating a migration crisis on the EU borders, the allegation that the Belarusian authorities denied. At the same time, Minsk accused the three countries of the forced expulsion of refugees to the Belarusian territory.