In the village of Antaviliai, Lithuania, a secret C.I.A. detention and torture center, known as Site Violet, operated from 2005 to 2006. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Lithuania was complicit in the C.I.A. secret detainee program. Despite evidence of the prison’s existence, Lithuania has been hesitant to acknowledge its role due to concerns over security, NATO dependence, and fears of a backlash from Russia.
President Dalia Grybauskaite expressed “indirect suspicions” of a secret prison in 2009, but since then, officials have remained silent on the issue. The European Court has ordered Lithuania to pay compensation to detainees held in the country, pointing to the existence of the site.
The property that housed Site Violet was taken over by the Lithuanian prison service for use as a training center, despite its dark past of shackling prisoners and subjecting them to harsh interrogation methods.
The secrecy surrounding the Site Violet scandal reflects Lithuania’s uneasy relationship with the United States and its own complicity in C.I.A. operations. The fear of repercussions and the desire to remain in America’s good graces have led to a lack of transparency and accountability in addressing the human rights violations that occurred at the site.
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