A/HRC/7/19/Add.4 page 6 Introduction 1. At the invitation of the Government, the Special Rapporteur visited Lithuania (Vilnius, Trakai and Visaginas) from 16 to 19 September 2007. At the government level, he held meetings with the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Justice, Education and Science, Culture, Social Security, the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Interior, representatives of its Migration and Police Departments, and the Director of the Department of National Minorities and Lithuanians Living Abroad. The Special Rapporteur also met with the President of the Supreme Court, the President of the Seimas (Parliament) and members of its Committee on Human Rights, the Ombudsperson for Children’s Rights, the Ombudsperson for Equal Opportunities, the Deputy Head of the Prosecution Service at the Office of the General Prosecutor and the Inspector of Journalist Ethics. At the local level, he also met with the Vice-Mayor of Visaginas. 2. Apart from the agenda with the Government and State institutions, the Special Rapporteur also had extensive meetings with representatives of civil society organizations that are active in the realm of racism and xenophobia, minority communities as well as victims of racism and racial discrimination. He visited Roma and Jewish communities in Vilnius and the Karaïte community in Trakai. The Special Rapporteur also visited the Lithuanian National Museum in Vilnius. 3. The Special Rapporteur wishes to express his gratitude to the Government of Lithuania for its cooperation and openness throughout the visit. He also wishes to thank the United Nations Country Team in Vilnius, in particular the staff of the United Nations Development Programme, for its outstanding support. I. GENERAL BACKGROUND A. Historical and political context 4. Lithuania has existed as an independent political entity and internationally recognized nation for many centuries, with the first reference to Lithuania as a nation dating back to 1009. Lithuanian statehood first emerged with the creation of the Kingdom of Lithuania in 1253, which extended into modern-day Belarus and Ukraine, stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. In the late fourteenth century, when Lithuania and Poland shared the same ruler, the Christianization of the country took place, influencing particularly the upper classes. Apart from Christianity and family links among royalty, a number of political factors made Lithuania and Poland converge, culminating in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that lasted until 1795. Polish influence in Lithuanian cultural and social life became stronger during this period. Polish became an official language in 1697, used particularly by the upper classes and the nobility. 5. Lithuania fell under Imperial Russia in 1795, shortly before the Napoleonic wars. After the French army’s withdrawal from the Baltics, Tsar Nicholas I put forward a policy of Russification of the region. The Lithuanian language and the Latin alphabet were banned in schools. Furthermore, with the widespread use of Polish by the upper classes, Lithuanian became relegated to being a language for the poor and lower middle classes.