The deputy head of the Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TS-LKD) faction in the Seimas, Radvilė Morkūnaitė-Mikulėnienė, addressed the head of the Milan "Inter" football club, urging him to quickly rectify the shameful practice where individuals born in Lithuania who want to buy tickets to the club's matches through the club's online ticket sales platform can only do so by indicating that they were born in the Soviet Union, reports lrytas.lt. According to R. Morkūnaitė-Mikulėnienė, such a practice can only be eradicated by consistently and decisively responding to similar cases. Therefore, the parliamentarian requested our country's foreign affairs minister to promptly respond to this and other similar incidents, and to investigate whether such practices are still being used in other European Union countries when issuing, for example, driver's licenses.
In the online ticket sales platform www.inter.it of the Italian football club "Internazionale" Milano, Lithuanian citizens, regardless of their year of birth, must indicate the Soviet Union as their place of birth in order to purchase tickets.
"In my opinion, the fact that citizens of an independent country are forced to identify themselves as people of the Soviet empire in order to receive services or rights is a grotesque continuation of occupation. It is strange that this is happening in Italy, another democratic and free state. Although many Germans were born during the time of Nazi Germany, they are not forced to identify themselves as born in the 'Third Reich'. Similarly, individuals born in Soviet-occupied countries should not be forced to identify themselves with the occupying totalitarian empire," notes the member of the Seimas.
lrytas.lt
