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Estonian President Lashes Out at Russian Press
Estonia’s President Toomas Hendrik Ilves is not happy with the way Russian mass media covers developments in his country. The Estonians and Russians are often unable to recognize their country when they watch reports on Russian television, the president said in an interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio on Friday. Estonia’s leader says that people who consider Estonia a hostile country often form this opinion because of the country’s negative portrayal in Russian press.
Speaking to Ekho Moskvy, the Estonian president underscored the similarity between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, which can be seen in attitudes of Estonians. “Estonia lost a third of its population in World War II, and both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union are to blame for it,” Mr. Ilves said, explaining why his people treat the two totalitarian regimes in the same way. So, it is no wonder that the Estonians want to pull down the monument to Soviet Liberator Warrior, he noted. The Estonian Parliament passed a bill on November 9 that would make it possible to dismantle all monuments to Soviet warriors in the country. This decision has caused uproar in Estonia’s Russian community and in Russia.
In a meantime, Amnesty International published a report on December 7 lambasting large-scale discrimination of the Russian speaking minority in the county and asking EU members to pay heed to the situation in Estonia.
Amnesty International has recommended the European Commission to pay particular attention to the situation with language minorities in Estonia in its monitoring of the enforcement of the EU law which bans any language discrimination. The human right activists believe that Europe should have a closer control over the way Estonia executes its obligations to broaden access to the labor market for Russian speakers.
www.kommersant.com
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