Riots rock Estonia, 600 detained
2007-04-28 08:57
Tallinn - Seventy-four people were injured, including nine police officers, and about 600 detained in a second night of rioting in Estonia on Saturday after a controversial Soviet war memorial was moved from Tallinn.
Rioting was also reported for the first time outside the capital, in Johvi, 165km northeast of Tallinn.
"A few hundred people are on the move in the town, smashing the windows of buildings and cars," Estonian police said in a statement on Friday.
Riot police used a water cannon, rubber batons and sound devices to disperse crowds of vandals who had smashed the windows of the Art Academy in central Tallinn and looted a nearby liquor store.
Roving gangs also entered the National Theatre in the city centre, but it was unclear whether it had been looted.
Police lines attempted to keep rioting youth groups apart, pushing them out of the central area, said an AFP correspondent on the scene.
One stabbed in riots
Groups of youths shouted "Rossiya! Rossiya!" ("Russia" in Russian) and waved Russian flags.
Rioting first erupted overnight on Thursday, when police tried to prevent a small group of youths from breaking through a security cordon set up around a towering bronze figure of a Red Army soldier ahead of the statue's removal.
A 20-year-old died after being stabbed during the first night of violence and 300 were detained in what officials called the worst unrest to rock Tallinn since Estonia regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
The statue was moved to a secret location in the early hours of Friday, in a bid to prevent more unrest.
Concrete bollards were set up on the road leading to the parliament building after about 60 youngsters demonstrated outside, shouting "Fascists" in Russian and calling on the prime minister to come out.
Monument vandalised
The last time the Estonian parliament was barricaded was in 1991, when Soviet tanks advanced towards Tallinn to crush the independence drive of the Baltic state.
A monument to Estonian writer Anton Hansen Tammsaare, located in a park in central Tallinn, was daubed in white paint in Cyrillic letters on Friday, prompting anger from Estonian youths.
Police managed to keep the Estonian and Russian groups apart at the vandalised monument.
According to an AFP correspondent, the police responded more quickly and with greater force when violence erupted shortly before midnight on Friday and was quelled in a few hours.
Many of the hundreds detained were Russian-speakers in their teens and many were drunk, police said.
Those arrested will be released into the custody of their parents.
Central Tallinn was calm at daybreak on Saturday, said an AFP reporter.