Republic of Lithuania
Head of state: Dalia Grybauskaitė
Head of government: Algirdas Butkevičius

In February, the Prosecutor General opened an investigation into allegations that a Saudi Arabian national had been subjected to illegal rendition to Lithuania by the US CIA with the help of Lithuanian intelligence officials. A law, which aimed at "protecting minors" against detrimental public information, resulted in violations of the right to freedom of expression of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people.

Counter-terror and security

In January, the Vilnius Regional Court ruled that the Lithuanian Prosecutor General's refusal to launch a pre-trial investigation into allegations that Saudi Arabian national Mustafa al-Hawsawi had been illegally transferred to and detained in a CIA detention centre at Antaviliai, near Vilnius, had been "groundless". Legal representatives for Mustafa al-Hawsawi had complained that he was tortured and subjected to enforced disappearance in Lithuania between 2004 and September 2006. In February, the Prosecutor General opened a pre-trial investigation focusing on Mustafa al-Hawsawi's alleged illegal transfer to Lithuania.

The Prosecutor General had previously refused to investigate similar allegations by lawyers for Palestinian Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn ( known as Abu Zubaydah ) . Abu Zubaydah's case against Lithuania was pending before the European Court of Human Rights at the end of the year . Both Mustafa al-Hawsawi and Abu Zubaydah remained held at Guantánamo Bay.

In May, the UN Committee against Torture urged the government to complete the investigation into Mustafa al-Hawsawi's alleged rendition in a timely and transparent manner. In the aftermath of the release in December of a US Senate report on CIA secret detention that contained references to "detention site violet", widely believed to have been located in Lithuania, it was reported that the Lithuanian authorities were seeking additional information from the USA to determine whether detainees had been held and tortured in Lithuania. Information in the Senate report regarding "detention site violet" conformed with a 2009 Lithuanian parliamentary inquiry that had concluded that the CIA had established two secret sites in Lithuania.

Rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people

In May, the Office of the Inspector of Journalist Ethics concluded a book of fairy tales, which included stories of same-sex relationships, opposed "traditional family values", as protected by the Law on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effects of Public Information. The book's distribution was stopped.

In September, the Office of the Inspector of Journalist Ethics found a video promoting tolerance towards LGBTI people and portraying same-sex families violated the Law on the Protection of Minors.

Transgender people continued to be denied access to legal gender recognition because of legislative gaps. Two proposals were pending before the parliament: one aimed at banning legal gender recognition, the other at allowing transgender people to seek legal recognition of their gender under certain compulsory conditions, including reassignment surgery.

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