LITHUANIA’S PRESIDENT SLAMS ANTI-GAY LAW

Dalia Grybauskaite, who was inaugurated as Lithuania’s president on Sunday, has criticised the homophobic law which includes homosexuality as material deemed harmful to the mental health and “intellectual or moral development” of minors.

“I’m very much upset that such kind of laws in Lithuania are possible,” she told reporters during a joint news conference in Stockholm with Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.

Lithuanian lawmakers this week overturned a veto by Lithuania’s previous president, meaning the new president has no option but to sign it into law.

“But I have a tool,” she said. “This tool is the possibility to come with a proposal for (an) amendment of the law.” She did not say what changes she would propose, but said the “human rights of all of society” would be important during her tenure as president.

The International Gay and Lesbian Youth Organisation along with other national and international youth groups expressed “outrage” at the law.

In a joint statement, the group said that it “strongly condemn[s] the Law on the Protection of Minors against Detrimental Effect of Public Information, a piece of legislation that goes against the fundamental human rights of minors and those who work with them.”