What were infamous right-wing radicals doing in Lithuania?

In mid-February, the movement Kryptis [Direction], which presents itself as an ethno-futuristic youth gathering uniting youth of nationalistic views, organised a conference in Vilnius named Prabudimas [Awakening]. In it participated right-wing radicals Greg Johnson, Jarred Taylor and Estonian parliamentarian Ruuben Kaalep, speakers from the USA and Estonia, who are often identified as extremists Tomas Balčiūnas writes in Lzinios.lt

G. Johnson is the editor in chief of the Counter-Currents Publishing portal. This portal releases content linked to the radical right and distributes the author’s books. One of them is the White Nationalist Manifesto, which was available for purchase during the conference.

‘White nationalism is inevitably anti-Semitic’

“The organised Jewish community is the main enemy – not the only enemy, but the main one each time when trying to prevent or cease the extinction of the white race. You cannot defeat and enemy without naming it. As such, white nationalism is inevitably anti-Semitic,” G. Johnson writes in one of his articles.

In another, he states, “White norms, such as walking on the sidewalk, not in the middle of the street, are unbearable to the blacks. Such norms are imposed by the white power systems that are hated by everyone so much. But if we do not impose white standards on them, we will then have chaos. Excellent cities such as Detroit have turned into wastelands.”

Another participant of the conference, J. Taylor is known for organising the annual American Renaissance Conference, where so-called intellectual racists obtain the opportunity to meet KKK members and other radicals.

Estonian Ruuben Kaalep is a member of the Conservative People’s Party of Estonia [CPPE]. Already back in school, R. Kaalep directed a play, with which he sought to raise doubts on the historical veracity of the Holocaust. In one of his current statements, he has said that the term “Holocaust” has been used by Zionists to permanently collectively accuse regarding, as the statement describes “potential programmes” to kill all European Jews during the Second World War.

As has been mentioned, the Prabudimas conference was organised by the movement Kryptis. Its founders are Tomas Aleknavičius, Tomas Skorupskis and Aivaras Nekliuda.

According to the newspaper Kauno Diena, in November 2016, T. Skorupskis was sentenced for public demonstration of Nazi symbolism. T. Skorupskis also participated in the 2018 Etnofutur conference in Estonia, during which he took the opportunity to take a photo with the well-known far right figure from Scotland Collin Robertson.

When asked, why he invited two infamous US extremists to the conference Prabudimas, T. Skorupskis answered that the concept of the conference was to invite right wing individuals in the broad sense.

“From fairly liberal ideas, libertarians to the alt right,” he said.

‘We do not share their anti-Semitic views’

According to T. Skorupskis, G. Johnson and J. Taylor are fairly well-known alt right figures and when asked how he views G. Johnson’s statements on the Jewish community, he answered, “We do not share an opinion on this matter. That’s a fact.”

Another one of the founders of Kryptis, T. Aleknavičius is one of the founders and youth affairs coordinator for current presidential candidate Arvydas Juozaitis’ gathering Lietuva yra Čia [Lithuania is here]. On contacting T. Aleknavičius, he stated he was unable to talk and advised to contact the gathering’s chairman T. Skorupskis regarding all inquiries. The third organiser of the movement Kryptis is blogger A. Nekliuda.

The Facebook page of the Kryptis movement, which describes itself as ethnofuturistic, has only a little under five hundred followers. One of them is presidential candidate Mindaugas Puidokas. Upon contacting the presidential candidate and inquiring whether he supports extremists, he responded that he did not know anything about it and did not find anything on the Kryptis Facebook page about the extremist conference Prabudimas.

“Solely the fact that you have pressed “like” on a certain Facebook page does not mean that you agree with everything that is done on it,” the candidate stated, adding that he did so in order to see information and what is done by, as he describes it “nationalist youth.”