Estonia: Discussion over OSI report on EU Accession and Minority Protection

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Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 15:53:59 +0200 (EET)
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Subject: Estonia: Discussion over OSI report on EU Accession and Minority Protection

From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>

Original sender: Irina Ljahh <[email protected]>

Estonia: Discussion over OSI report on EU Accession and
Minority Protection


Estonia: Recent developments in minority rights discussion 

26 October 2001 in Tallinn took place the presentation of the Open
Society Institute (OSI) report Monitoring the EU Accession Process:
Minority Protection (with special emphasis on its Estonian chapter).
The special roundtable discussion gathered representatives of NGOs,
minority activists, state officials, representatives of foreign
missions. This forum was an excellent opportunity to discuss the
report with the members of Estonian working group that assisted OSI.
The head of the group, Director of the Legal Information Centre for
Human Rights Aleksei Semjonov, presented the main findings of the
Estonian part of the report.  He called participants for constructive
discussion of the problems identified.

Unfortunately, the attempt to organize the constructive discussion was
sabotaged by the high ranked officials. Thus, in her speech Estonian
Minister of Population Affairs Ms. Katrin Saks in rough expressions
characterized the OSI report as "tendentious and nonobjective". To her
mind, the report was based on false data, misinterpretation of facts
and on the unfounded generalization of isolated facts. Later in her
presentation, Minister Saks tried to give examples of mistakes and
misinterpretations. Unfortunately, Ms. Saks did not give the
opportunity to the authors of the report to comment on her
allegations: she left the forum soon after the presentation. Up until
now, the authors of the report did not receive the written comments of
Ms. Saks. Additionally, the Baltic News Service has distributed the
negative statements of the minister without comments of the authors. 

In the interview to the Vesti Nedelya plus weekly (2 November 2001) Mr
Semjonov said: "Ms Saks could make her remarks in March this year (at
the discussion of the preliminary version of the report), but she did
not�  (On Friday) her reaction to the criticisms was similar to the
reaction of the Soviet era party bosses. The similarity was also based
on the fact that Ms. Saks's accusations could not be backed by
something substantial. Many examples of "mistakes" she presented at
the seminar demonstrated her poor knowledge of the text of the report
or poor knowledge of some sections of Estonian legislation. There were
remarks we failed to understand. For example, she called some figures
"false" - these were the same figures that we had got from the
Minister Saks' office. By the way, almost all data for the report were
taken from the official sources".

The local Russian-language press actively discussed the report.
However, it was almost totally ignored by the Estonian press. The
leading daily Postimees (3 November 2001) has written about the
"conflict"  of "prestigious, malicious and demagogic social scientist
Aleksei Semjonov" with Minister Saks over the report (not about the
report itself). After the author of the article, the human rights
topic in Estonia should be called the "Russians' applying for
privileges in Estonia, first of all, for a privilege of negative
attitude to the Estonian language".

It is worth mentioning, that simultaneously with the OSI report's
presentation the Estonian press started a campaign against the
management of the Department of Integration and Social Security under
the Tallinn City Government. The newspapers discussed the allegations
of misuse of "integration money" by the members of local Russian
parties. Many analysts decided that these publications have launched a
new local election campaign. Peculiarly enough that the first
accusations were articulated by Russian politicians (e.g. MP Sergei
Ivanov). The scandal over the integration department substituted any
comments on the OSI report.

The recent developments made it clear that the publication of the OSI
report in Estonia did not encouraged disputes between minorities and
officials and minorities and ethnic Estonians. The "majority" party
preferred to stigmatize or ignore the OSI report and its findings.
Demonstration of such attitudes questioned the statements of the local
politicians that the civil society in Estonia can reach soon the stage
of maturity.

Legal Information Centre For Human Rights

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