On February 26, 2026, the Vilnius City District Court exercised the coercive authority of the Lithuanian state against historical distortion. Erika Švenčionienė, a pro-Russian activist and co-founder of the dissolved International Forum of Good Neighborhood, was convicted for publicly denying or trivializing Soviet crimes. Her offense arose from a Facebook post questioning the official account of the 1991 Medininkai border checkpoint attack, in which seven Lithuanian officers were killed and one seriously wounded. She described the attack as a “dark consequence of the actions of the Lithuanian special services,” suggested the perpetrators were “from among their own,” and claimed “the truth is hidden.” A court-appointed linguistics expert testified that her statements reflected narratives typical of hostile propaganda. Under Lithuania’s criminal prohibition against denial or gross trivialization of international crimes, including those committed by the Soviet regime, the court imposed a €3,750 fine.

The state did not treat this as opinion. It treated it as criminal harm. Prosecutors acted. The court adjudicated. A sanction followed.

Lithuania has demonstrated that it regards historical distortion as sufficiently serious to warrant criminal enforcement. It has shown institutional will, legal capacity, and readiness to defend national memory through coercive means.

The question is whether it applies that principle evenly.

Where Enforcement Stops

For more than a decade, I formally petitioned the Lithuanian Public Prosecutor multiple times to initiate criminal investigation into Birutė Burauskaitė, former Director General of the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania (LGGRTC), for publicly defending and institutionally preserving demonstrably false historical claims regarding Jonas Noreika and other Lithuanian officials whose documented conduct facilitated the persecution, dispossession, and annihilation of Jews during the Holocaust.

Each submission included primary archival documentation contradicting the LGGRTC’s official findings. Each requested prosecutorial scrutiny of whether knowingly maintaining materially false exculpatory narratives concerning Holocaust-era administrative conduct warranted criminal examination.

Each request was refused.

No indictment. No evidentiary hearing. No criminal review on the merits.

Instead, the Prosecutor’s Office declined to proceed, and Lithuanian courts later insulated LGGRTC determinations by classifying them as “informational acts” beyond substantive judicial review.

The contrast is procedural and documented.

In one direction, criminal law is deployed. In the other, institutional distortion is protected.

The Structural Asymmetry

When Soviet crimes are minimized or denied:

Criminal law is invoked.

Courts adjudicate the merits.

When Lithuanian participation in the Holocaust is minimized, reframed, or shielded:

The LGGRTC classifies its outputs as informational.

Prosecutors refuse to initiate proceedings.

Courts decline merits review.

Lithuania has proven it possesses the legal instruments.

The difference lies in which historical narrative it is prepared to defend coercively.

Equalization in Theory, Hierarchy in Practice

Lithuania formally promotes the “two totalitarianisms” framework, presenting Nazi and Soviet crimes as parallel historical catastrophes.

If that equivalence were operational, enforcement would be symmetrical.

Denial of Soviet crimes triggers prosecution. Distortion of Lithuanian administrative participation in the Holocaust triggers insulation.

That is hierarchy in practice.

The Demographic Record

Approximately 96 percent of Lithuania’s Jewish population was murdered during the Holocaust — the highest annihilation rate in Europe. The destruction unfolded through identifiable administrative mechanisms: confinement orders, property seizures, ghettoization directives, and cooperation between German authorities and local structures. These processes are documented in Lithuanian archives.

This is not abstract history.

When state-aligned institutions minimize or reinterpret the role of Lithuanian officials in those processes, and prosecutors refuse even to review the matter, while criminally prosecuting denial of crimes committed against Lithuanians, the disparity becomes operational.

Crimes against Lithuanians are defended through criminal sanction. Crimes committed by Lithuanian nationals are treated as interpretive matters.

Institutional Bad Faith

Bad faith in public administration arises when:

Documented notice of error is received;

Authority to correct exists;

Correction is refused;

The disputed position persists;

Procedural shields prevent review.

The LGGRTC received documentary contradiction supported by primary archival evidence. It possessed authority to revise its determinations. It did not. Its conclusions remained intact and were later insulated by courts as non-reviewable informational acts.

This is not a question of interpretive nuance.

It is a question of institutional conduct after notice.

When criminal enforcement is vigorous in one historical domain and structurally absent in another, asymmetry becomes measurable.

Article 14 ECHR and Article 2 TEU

Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights prohibits discrimination in the application of Convention rights, including differential treatment in criminal enforcement.

Selective enforcement does not require proof of animus. It requires materially comparable conduct receiving materially different legal treatment.

If denial of crimes committed against Lithuanians triggers prosecution, while distortion minimizing crimes committed against Jews by Lithuanian nationals receives insulation, a legitimate question arises under Article 14.

Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union requires equality before the law and effective judicial protection.

A two-tier enforcement structure — criminal rigor in one direction, insulation in the other — raises rule-of-law concerns that extend beyond historical debate.

What a Court Would Have to Test

If a defendant were to argue unequal enforcement under European human-rights standards, a court would not decide the claim on rhetoric. It would examine whether materially comparable public distortion of international crimes is treated differently in prosecutorial practice; whether “informational act” insulation prevents effective judicial protection when state institutions disseminate contested historical determinations; and whether differential enforcement can be justified by objective criteria rather than narrative preference.

The relevant evidence would include charging patterns, declination decisions, comparator cases, prosecutorial correspondence, and the availability of effective domestic remedies.

These are legal tests, not political arguments.

The Prosecutorial Obligation

Given the February 26 conviction and other pending cases involving criminalized historical distortion, consistency now requires review.

If Lithuania maintains that denial of international crimes warrants prosecution, then prior refusals to examine institutional Holocaust distortion must be revisited.

Selective enforcement cannot remain unexamined without undermining the credibility of the prosecution standard itself.

At minimum, the Prosecutor’s Office should reopen and review previously declined complaints to ensure uniform application of criminal law principles.

Failure to conduct such review would strengthen the appearance that enforcement depends on whose memory is being defended.

The Governance Question

Lithuania participates in Holocaust commemorations. It partners with Jewish institutions. It condemns antisemitism abroad. It presents itself as committed to historical justice.

But states reveal their priorities through prosecutorial choices.

Lithuania has shown it can act with force when denial concerns crimes committed against the nation.

It has not shown equivalent force when distortion concerns crimes committed by its nationals.

Until criminal standards are applied without hierarchy — without privileging one category of historical suffering over another — enforcement will remain uneven.

This is not about defending any denier.

It is about whether equality before the law in Europe is conditional.

If enforcement depends on which victims are invoked, the issue is no longer memory.

And governance is measured by what the state prosecutes — and what it protects.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)