Main narratives:
- Anti-government narratives;
- Minimising trust in official institutions;
- Questioning the country’s security;
- Creating the divisions between politicians and “ordinary” citizens
Overview:
During this reporting period, the entire country closely followed an intense drama, namely the search for a missing 9-year-old girl. Fortunately, she has been found alive after a frantic two-day search by officers and hundreds of volunteers. Lithuanian police successfully carried out an operation to free the girl, who was kidnapped and held in a garage in Kaunas. Despite the show of public unity, a well-known anti-government and Kremlin-aligned actor, Antanas Kandrotas (Celofanas [Cellophane]), continued to fuel passions on Lithuanian social networks. Celofanas has repeatedly claimed that he has “non-public information” about the crime and that “police are hiding the real situation”, urging his audience not to trust police officers in general. Right before the victim’s suspected abductor was detained, Celofanas sparked an outpouring of hate by naming and publishing a photograph of a man on Facebook, alleging his involvement in the crime. Turned out that he was not related to the crime at all.
