Protests in Lithuania in the Pandemic Era

Abstract

The COVID-19 caused a global crisis of an unprecedented scale. In order to contain the spread of the virus, governments took instant measures, adopting new legal regulations which included restrictions and limitations in the sphere of constitutional rights and freedoms. The aim of the paper is to discuss protesters’ actions and their different forms, and to analyse the response of law enforcement officers who secured demonstrations. I undertook to find the answers to two fundamental research questions: What action did protesters take during the pandemic in Lithuania? What was the character and intensity of the surveillance, intimidation and presence of the police during demonstrations? The research covers the period from 11 March 2020, when the World Health Organization declared the pandemic, to the autumn of 2021, when anti-vaccine protests took place in Lithuania. In the study, I applied the institutional and legal analysis, as well as the qualitative source analysis.