Lithuania should decriminalize defamation, says OSCE media freedom representative

VIENNA, 24 October 2011 – The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatović, expressed concern at the criminal defamation trial of Dainius Radzevičius, the Chairman of the Lithuanian Union of Journalists, that started in Vilnius today.

“Radzevičius is accused of defamation for expressing an opinion in his blog on the alleged behaviour of some media outlets. Matters of such  public importance and interest should be allowed to be discussed freely and with the highest degree of legal protection,” said Mijatović.

Vitas Tomkus, the owner of Respublika newspaper, filed criminal defamation charges against Radzevičius for comments made in his blog in reference to a diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks. The cable claimed that some Lithuanian media coerced advertisers into placing ads by threatening them with smear campaigns. Respublika was mentioned in the cable as an example of this bad practice.

“This case illustrates the need for Lithuania, the current OSCE Chairmanship, to abolish criminal defamation laws altogether, in order to relieve its media from the ‘chilling’ effect of those outdated provisions,” said Mijatović. “We see that even jurisdictions with a good media freedom record are not immune from criminal libel and insult cases”.

“It is a high time that Lithuania reformed its defamation law to encourage similar changes in other OSCE participating States. This would be in line with the Lithuanian Chairmanship’s own priority of media freedom,” said Mijatović.

Only 13 OSCE participating States do not have criminal defamation provisions. The Office of the OSCE media freedom representative has been advocating complete decriminalization of libel and insult since its establishment in 1998.