A promotional installation of a book criticizing the management of the pandemic by the Health Law Institute (STI) was removed at the Vilnius Book Fair held last week.
The authors of the "Year of Fear" publication call it censorship, the publishing house that removed the stand does not comment on the decision, and the organizers of the fair say that it simply takes into account the positions of the public.
STI is an institution founded in July 2021, which has regularly criticized pandemic management measures and mass vaccination. Some medical and legal experts consider STI as a source of misinformation.
Vigilant Control
As the head of STI Rimas Jankūnas told BNS, the installation was ordered to be removed by the publishing house "Obuolys", whose stand advertised the above-mentioned book.
"Shurayev started making noise, as far as I know, he went to ("Litexpo" - BNS) director, R. Jankūnas said. - None of us saw what happened there, we can only guess. The fact that they asked to be removed, that's what happened."
The words "fear", "book that are afraid", "premiere", "2020-2022" were indicated on the installation - an imitation of a wall made of blocks.
"Vigilant control. Complaints. Censorship," STI wrote on Facebook.
Obuolys, for its part, told BNS that the publishing house "installs, changes the exposition and dismantles trade and advertising elements at its own discretion" at the Book Fair.
"We have no further comment on this matter," the comment reads.
"This is disinformation"
Public figure and humorist Oleg Šurajevs told BNS that after seeing the advertised "Year of Fear" during the Vilnius Book Fair, he expressed his position to the curator of the booth both about "The Apple" itself and about the aforementioned book.
"Anyway, I really hate "Obuolis", I think that there is one of the worst publishing houses here, because they don't pay their authors, they cheat, they publish such books that it would be better not to have them at all", said O. Shurayevs.
The publicist was referring to the disputes between the publishing house and the authors that took place a few years ago due to unpaid royalties and poor communication with the authors.
O. Shurayevs also criticized the book that was on the "Obuolios" stand.
"I tell them: You don't find it ironic that here people were trying to be saved, they were being vaccinated, and you are promoting people who are actually doing everything to make people die. Because STI absolutely tacitly approves ativaxers to the doctrine, to the conspiracy theory in general, that we don't know the whole truth, that we are ruled by incompetent people", said the public figure.
“Then they said it was freedom of opinion. (…) The call not to vaccinate, because supposedly vaccinations don't work, there is no freedom of opinion, this is disinformation," he added.
The humorist later informed the managers of Litexpo about this, from whom he later heard that the stand would be removed.
"People are not the same"
The head of Litexpo, Justinas Bortkevičius, told BNS that he neither asked nor demanded the publisher to dismantle the mentioned installation, but simply reported the complaint.
"The situation was discussed, it was asked whether the publishing house plans to react in some way. I assume that the publishers were the solution to dismantle the stand," said the manager of the exhibition and congress center.
He emphasized that Litexpo even "does not have the right" to demand the removal of the stand or its element.
Lolita Varanavičienė, one of the organizers of the book fair, looks at the situation positively: a public figure drew attention, and the publishing house reacted to the remark.
"I am happy that what happens at the fair does not leave people indifferent. Mr. Shurayev's attitude seems civil and understandable to me. This only shows that people are not the same as what the publishers' stands are talking about," the president of the Lithuanian Publishers Association told BNS.
"If the publishing house removed it, it means that they took the opinion into account. So I don't see any conflict here," she added.
According to L. Varanavičienė, the publisher who rented the sales place is always responsible for the stands and their interior.
It is estimated that 52,7 thousand people visited the event this year. people.
Author Augustas Stankevičius
