Several weeks ago Lithuania installed an authoritarian COVID-19 passport regime.
Named the “Opportunity Pass,” Lithuania’s government introduced a two-tier society that segregates vaccinated and unvaccinated.
Citizens who don’t have a COVID-19 Pass get treated like 2nd class citizens.
A new thread from a Lithuanian father and husband provided an update to life inside the small European nation’s segregated society.
While much of the world views Australia as the gold standard of COVID tyranny, Lithuania is furthest along the path to authoritarian rule.
Without your COVID-19 Pass, Lithuania’s regime bans you from shopping centers, clothing stores, bookstores, medical facilities, banks, libraries, and more.
Read the entire thread below for a glimpse inside Lithuania’s COVID segregated society.
The Covid Pass in Lithuania is called the "Opportunity Pass".
The Opportunity Pass allows you the opportunity to participate in society.
Without the Opportunity Pass, you don't have opportunity: your rights are restricted.
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— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
With no Pass, we may only enter small shops with street entrances which mainly sell essential goods: food, pharma, optics, or farm/pet goods.
This convenience store meets the requirements, so we may enter.
— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
All shopping centers ban people without the Covid Pass.
Machines have been installed to scan and verify the Pass of each person who enters.
No Pass, no entrance.
— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
Why is an ID needed to shop, in addition to a Pass? To verify the Pass is yours.
e.g:
A construction worker wanted food for his morning shift. Without his own Pass, he used his boss's QR code to enter a supermarket.Police fined the man 5,000 eur and issued a press release.
— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
At all supermarkets >1500m2, guards scan each customer's Pass.
My wife and I may not shop in these supermarkets: no Pass, no entrance.
10/ pic.twitter.com/rvNYqoZv23
— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
We're banned from bookstores.
Only people with a Covid Pass may enter. Because we don't have a Pass, my wife and I cannot take our two children here.
12/ pic.twitter.com/ChIELoouP3
— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
Without a Covid Pass, we can't take our children to art supply stores.
We're also not allowed to pick up online orders.
14/ pic.twitter.com/ERKW2LPVov
— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
Without a Pass, we may not receive repair services which last longer than 15 minutes.
This is an online ad for a shop which repairs iPhone screens:
"Don't have a Pass? We can register you by phone and then we'll collect your device outside the entrance!"
16/ pic.twitter.com/H3kYb5OByi
— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
Without a Pass, we may not visit patients in medical facilities or senior care/residential homes.
The only exception is for terminally-ill patients, pregnant women, or children under 14 years of age, if the doctor gives advance permission.
18/ pic.twitter.com/GOXQNi3Dwa
— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
Without a Covid Pass, we may not enter banks or insurance companies, except for essential financial purposes where the service lasts no longer than 15 minutes.
20/ pic.twitter.com/QFTUl9rlfh
— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
At libraries, my family may only pick up and drop off books. Without a Covid Pass, we may not browse, read, or research.
The library has separate entrances to enforce the segregation. The sign on the main door says:
"↑ Only with the Opportunity Pass
→ Without the Pass"22/ pic.twitter.com/ow3wcIL8Nk
— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
With no Pass, we may not enter the main door. Instead, a series of signs direct us to a service entry behind the driveway:
a) "Place for those with no Pass"
b) "Pick-up/drop-off point for pre-ordered books (no Pass). Enter one at a time. Wear mask. Max 15 mins per person."
24/ pic.twitter.com/kFtx2W8cpa
— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
All this should be global headlines: "Lithuania bans citizens from society! Other EU countries following soon!"
But there's scant reporting about this fundamental transformation in society.
Or about the segregation and authoritarianism which has been the inevitable result.
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— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
Temporary expansion of bureaucratic control is never temporary.
Particularly when the problem supposedly being solved is caused by the very bureaucrats who use it to justify expanding their own power.
28/ pic.twitter.com/CKxLduVnKN
— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
This is an inversion of universal rights.
In a free society, you can do whatever you want, unless the law prohibits you.
Under Lithuania's new Covid Pass regime, it's inverted: you can't do anything, unless a bureaucrat allows you.
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— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
The rules are petty, abstruse. They've been changed dozens of times in the two months of the Pass.
Bureaucrats themselves don't agree with each other about how to apply the law.
But the punishment if you don't comply properly? Severe.
32/ pic.twitter.com/7Ra5WKKyyT
— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
In the days after the Pass was imposed, people’s main complaint – as reported in the media, at least – was the inconvenience of showing the Pass twenty times a day.
A solution went viral and was published in news sites: add the Pass on your home screen.
Problem solved.
34/ pic.twitter.com/tHus1wRZWT
— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
Two months after the Covid Pass regime was imposed, the bureaucrats decided to significantly increase the coercion.
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— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
Complying with the 30 m2 rule would cause a massive reduction in a store's customer traffic.
For a typical convenience store, the new restriction would mean only 2 or 3 shoppers at a time.
For most pharmacies, it would mean only one customer allowed inside at a time.
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— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
The increase in coercion takes from my family the few shopping options we still had.
But it does not confer morality. What was wrong before is still wrong now.
So we'll be buying all our supplies from outdoor markets this winter.
No Pass required.
For now, at least.
40/ pic.twitter.com/6Z3N2nUQjG
— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
Revoking some freedoms has opened the door to revoke more.
As the Covid Pass regime has become entrenched, the banishment and segregation it mandates has unleashed an authoritarian fervor to also ban free speech and stifle dissent.
42/ pic.twitter.com/lfhKLgXDWA
— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
My wife and I refuse to be caricatured as crazed anti-vaxxers.
We are not illiterate, innumerate, or anti-science.
We do not believe in conspiracy theories
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— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
The Covid Pass regime has divided people into two classes.
One class gets rights. The other class is banished.
This is a two-tier society of state-sanctioned segregation.
It is the inevitable result of the Covid Pass.
46/ pic.twitter.com/c1apbDaeZw
— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
Blame for disease. Accusation of wartime betrayal. Death wishes.
Opinion that was repugnant in 2019 has become mainstream in 2021.
This is the inevitable result of the Covid Pass.
48/ pic.twitter.com/e5rDqJw3pY
— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
To see liberty's loss is heart-wrenching for my wife and me.
We cry for our land, twisted into a regime of control and segregation.
We cry for our neighbors, as we watch fear close their eyes to the path they walk back to an authoritarianism we overcame only 30 years ago.
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— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
Our society in Lithuania has already been transformed into a regime of authoritarianism and segregation.
But there's nothing unique about our case.
What has happened to us in our society is the inevitable reality facing every society which will impose the Covid Pass.
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— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
We believe the vast majority of people everywhere would reject this world of control and coercion.
But they don't know it's coming. They don't know it's the inevitable result of the Covid Pass. And they don't know that they – we – all of us – must rise up now to stop it.
— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
Despite the hardships we face, my wife and I have hope.
Many people around the world are already fighting the Covid Pass in their own countries.
And we believe that many, many more would join if they see the reality of where the Covid Pass inevitably leads.
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— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
We believe that if enough people see the authoritarianism and segregation in our society, they will rise to block it in their society.
And then we can join together, across all societies, to stop this madness everywhere before it's too late for all of us.
end/
— Gluboco Lietuva (@gluboco) October 23, 2021
Lithuania is the desired model for every country.
We must stop this at all costs!
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