| Abstract [eng] |
As a member of the European Union, Lithuania is committed to ensuring international protection, transparent asylum application processing procedures and appropriate reception conditions for third-country nationals requesting protection. For a long time, Lithuania was not an attractive country for migrants and asylum seekers, so the asylum system functioned smoothly and was able to cope with an even load. However, in 2021 the situation, when Lithuania faced an unexpected and unusual situation flow of asylum seekers arriving across the Lithuanian-Belarusian border, prompted the responsible institutions to review the asylum policy and take appropriate decisions. Despite the fact that non-governmental organizations were involved in solving this crisis situation, the state's strategy of deterring migrants and the narrative of a hybrid attack reasonably raised public debates about gaps in the provision of human rights in the case of securitized crisis management. Research problem: how to ensure a balanced level of state security and human rights standard in solving the crisis of migrants-asylum seekers? Research object: the case of managing the crisis of artificially created migrants-asylum seekers who illegally crossed the state border of Lithuania from the Belarusian side in 2021. The aim: to reveal the problems and possibilities of the compatibility of state security and respect for human rights in the context of the migration crisis and present suggestions for improvement. For the implementation of the research goal, five tasks were formulated; legal acts, scientific and journalistic literature, statistical data, media monitoring, public opinion research, thematic document analysis and qualitative expert interview research methods were applied. Findings of the study: after conducting a two-stage empirical study, based on the perspective of non-governmental organizations, problematic issues of migration crisis management in 2021 were identified. It was established that in this situation it was not possible to ensure the appropriate standard of respect for human rights and dignity. Based on the experience of NGOs and the assessment of experts, recommendations were made for crisis management strategies with a more favorable aspect of human rights. The most important of them are associated with issues of attitude to human rights, public communication, preparation for emergency situations, resource mobilization and the need for a long-term strategy. |
