Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda on Friday last week signed a decree stripping retired Russian Olympic figure skater Margarita Drobiazko of her Lithuanian citizenship for her public support of the Kremlin waging war in Ukraine.
Drobiazko, who won a bronze medal for Lithuania at the world championships in 2000, was granted Lithuanian citizenship in 1993 by way of exception so she could represent the country in international sporting events alongside her Lithuanian partner Povilas Vanagas.
In 2000, the pair got married and represented Lithuania at five Olympic Games finishing as high as fifth. They were awarded the Fifth Class of the Order of the Grand Duke Gediminas of Lithuania.
After Moscow invaded Ukraine, Drobiazko and Vanagas on Aug. 9 last year took part in a Swan Lake ballet on ice in Sochi, Russia, hosted by Tatyana Navka, a retired ice skater and wife of Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov, a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The act received widespread condemnation and caused a furor in Lithuania.
Nauseda stripped the pair of their state awards, while the Lithuanian parliament made changes to the nation’s citizenship law. After making sure that Drobiazko could reinstate her Russian citizenship without fear of being stateless, Nauseda stripped Drobiazko of her Lithuanian citizenship.
Afterward, Drobiazko said in an open letter that she was not involved in Russian propaganda, but was spreading “the light of culture and goodness.”
The Lithuanian authorities maintained that Drobiazko had broken her oath to Lithuania and brought the country into disrepute by cooperating with a hostile regime.
“I think that people who want to carry the light of culture and goodness with the boots of the aggressor should continue to do so without the citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania,” Nauseda said.
“We have to choose sides as we cannot pretend that one thing exists without the other, especially when that culture, or the semblance of it, is created in a state that sheds innocent blood,” he said. “We must be principled and adhere to the values we have held since the first days of the war in Ukraine, and we will adhere to them.”
Drobiazko is not the first to maintain the notion that sports have nothing to do with politics. Such ludicrous narratives have also been prevalent in Taiwan. Taiwanese speedskater Huang Yu-ting (黃郁婷) drew criticism after posting an Instagram video showing her wearing the Chinese speed skating team’s uniform.
“Sport is sport. There is no nationality in the world of sports. Every athlete is a friend when we are not competing against each other,” she wrote.
Huang drew widespread criticism for the comments she made before and during the Beijing Winter Olympics last year.
In Taiwan, there are also Chinese spouses, who after having obtained Taiwanese citizenship, start to receive Chinese funding and do Beijing’s bidding. They spread pro-Chinese propaganda and infiltrate and develop political organizations that pose a huge threat to national security.
Aside from sporadic jail sentences being handed out for contraventions of the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), pro-China supporters have been hiding behind freedom of speech.
In the face of potential national security threats, Lithuania has taken action to prove that there are no gray areas in terms of national identification and loyalty. Lithuania’s unequivocal and blunt treatment of the ice skater is a good example for Taiwan to take a page from.
Chen Yung-chang is a company manager.
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