Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė nominated Kasčiūnas, current chair of the Seimas Committee on National Security and Defence (NSGK), as next national defence minister on Tuesday.
“Presidential candidates, who support the ratification of the Istanbul Convention and the partnership law, should not nominate Laurynas Kasčiūnas for one of the key state roles, especially at this time,” Sandra Adomavičiūtė, head of the Open Lithuania Foundation, said in a statement.
The NGOs argue that Kasčiūnas’ activities are based on radical ideas against national minorities, civil society and migrants.
“The extreme views of the politician permeate throughout his [Kasčiūnas – ELTA] biography. (&) To appoint him as a minister would mean normalising such views and ideas,” said Karolis Dambrauskas, doctor of social sciences and one of the authors of the letter.
“Laurynas Kasčiūnas was one of the initiators of the pushback policy, which led to an unknown number of deaths or permanent injuries of migrants at the Lithuanian-Belarusian border,” the statement reads.
The letter to the president was signed by Open Lithuania Foundation, the Lithuanian Centre for Human Rights, the Siena Group, the Human Rights Monitoring Institute, the Centre for Equality Advancement, the Lithuanian Social Democratic Youth Union, the Vilnius Women’s House, the NGO Platform for Development Cooperation and other associations.