Visual Response: part three

Okay, so I have researched the North Korean and Ukrainian events. But first of all I would like to talk about the third one. The pedophilia scandal in Lithuanian took place from 2008- 2012. It was a high-profile criminal case in Lithuania centring around allegations of sexual molestation of the then four-year-old Lithuanian girl and a double homicide. In November 2008, Drąsius Kedys accused Laimutė Stankūnaitė of allowing Andrius Ūsas to sexually molest their underage daughter. Frustrated by lack of progress in the investigation, Kedys took the case public. He published a video with his daughter's testimony, sent out DVDs to politicians, and appeared in the media. Still no case was brought before trail. In October 2009, Jonas Furmanavičius, a district judge and accused pedophile, and Violeta Naruševičienė, aunt of his daughter and accused procurer, were found dead and Kedys became the main murder suspect.While Kedys went into hiding, Lithuanian public sided with him portraying Kedys as a desperate father trying to protect his daughter against pedophiles. His body was found in April 2010 near Kaunas Reservoir. On 17 May 2012, following a court order, Kedys' daughter, who was previously living with Kedys' relatives in Garliava, was reunited with her mother Stankūnaitė. Due to continuous presence of protesters disagreeing with the 5-month old court decision, the operation was carried out with the assistance of riot police, with 39 protesters detained. Previously, Seimas (Lithuanian parliament) changed a law in order to allow the use of riot police in taking away the child. 

First I have to point out that there are many opinions about this and people are taking sides, so this project is just my personal response to these events, it is subjective as it is jus my opinion. But the reason I am doing this is to (if possible) raise awareness of the situation.

I believe, in a nutshell, that Kedys uncovered a clan of pedophilia among law authorities, making everyone realise that the people who should be protecting us are actually the most dangerous ones. As the distrust  and awareness grew among the lithuanian public, the authorities tried to put out this scandal by getting rid of the key witnesses, one of which was the victim. When the girl was reunited with her mother, (after a forceful invasion into the Venckienes property) they were never heard of again. Police lied about not using force, when photographs and videos from the witnesses states otherwise. Allegations and prosecutions were aimed to Kedys sister Neringa Venckiene to frame her as the villain in the whole situation. She fled the country and was never hear from since. When the actual perpetrators eventually covered their tracks, the case was closed and the press stopped talking about it, as if it never happened. I want to express my discontent towards this scandals outcome and the idea that the protectors of our rights are actually criminals abusing their power.

(Drasius Kedys, holding his daughter)

(people guarding the house of Venckiene from the police)