Riot threatens over monument as Estonian police break up crowd

Apr 26, 2007, 20:59 GMT

Tallinn - Violence broke out in the Estonian capital Tallinn Thursday evening as protests over plans to move a war memorial threatened to degenerate into a riot.

'The situation is constantly changing - the crowd is quite aggressive, but we're dealing with it,' a police spokeswoman told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Two officers received minor injuries in the clashes, she added.

At least four other people were taken to hospital, apparently injured when demonstrators threw stones and bottles at police.

The Red Army memorial has been the centre of controversy since Estonians and Russians scuffled on the site last May.

Ethnic Russians say it honours Soviet troops who died liberating Europe from fascism. Estonian nationalists say that for them, Soviet victory brought Soviet oppression, not liberation.

After a tense standoff between police and an estimated 1,000 demonstrators which lasted several hours, protesters overturned a car and began throwing stones at police soon after sunset, police spokeswoman Tuuli Harson said.

Officers responded by throwing thunderflash (stun) grenades, but the scuffles continued as the crowd retreated, with car and house windows broken.

The headquarters of the Reform Party, whose leader Andrus Ansip initiated moves to relocate the memorial, was one of the buildings targeted, the website rus.delfi.ee reported.

One person was hospitalized with a broken leg, while three were treated for minor head injuries, Baltic News Service BNS reported.

Police closed off the memorial complex - a statue of a Red Army soldier and an unknown number of graves - in the early hours of the morning as part of a government plan to relocate the complex.

Demonstrators opposed to the relocation began gathering soon after, some bringing flowers to the spot, others shouting slogans. During the course of the day nine people were arrested, six being charged with breaches of the peace.

But larger crowds gathered during the evening, which has been the warmest so far this year.

Some began shouting 'Shame! Shame!', while another car driven by protesters played a hymn variously interpreted as the Soviet national anthem or its Russian successor, which has the same melody.

At one point, a handful of demonstrators tried to force their way through the police line, but were driven back by a blast from a powder fire extinguisher.