In August 2013, Transparency International Lithuania received a desperate sounding email. A woman, preferring to stay anonymous, claimed that the day after having reported an alleged crime, using a purportedly anonymous police telephone line, she had received a visit by the very person she had accused of the crime. Not only was the informant’s identity revealed, showing that the line was far from anonymous, but the police initiated a pre-trial investigation on defamation against her. TI Lithuania supported the woman for the five months it took for the Prosecution Office to drop the charges against her. The case was widely publicised in Lithuania under the title “Something that should have never happened actually happened: Police betrayed and prosecuted an informant”.28 Examples such as this might explain why Lithuania is in the top 4 of the EU27, with people choosing to remain silent on corruption for fear of retaliation by the police or other authorities (30 per cent of Lithuanians).29
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WHEN REPORTING GOES WRONG