Russian police detain activists harassing Estonian president

Jun 30, 2008
In cooperation with BNS

MOSCOW - Russian police detained several dozen activists of the pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi (Ours) participating in a rally at the Library for Foreign Literature in Moscow who attempted to harass the visiting president of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves.

The police detained around 70 out of some 100 participants in the action, a spokeswoman for Nashi told Russian news agency Interfax

"The Nashi activists wanted to ask the Estonian head of state if he really regards the Soviet soldiers whose remains were removed from Tonismagi inTallinnas drunkards and marauders, and why he urged Finno-Ugric peoples in Khanty-Mansiysk to break away from Russia," the spokeswoman said.

The detained activists were taken to the police station.

Ilves and his wife, Evelin, currently on a working visit to Russia, presented a bust of Yuri Lotman, the founder of the Tartu-Moscow school of semiotics and long-time professor of the University of Tartu, to the Russian Library for Foreign Literature in Moscow.