On Wednesday, January 30, 2008, Sahra Wagenknecht will travel to Tallinn in order to observe the trial taking place there against the four who are charged with organizing the riots which took place in Tallinn last April.

On the background of the trial: In April 2007 the so-called Bronze Soldier, a monument commemorating the liberation of Tallinn from fascism, was relocated by the Estonian administration from its location in the center of the capital to the outskirts of the city. The peaceful demonstrations and rallies which took place on the eve of the relocation of the monument which holds high symbolic value especially for the Russian-speaking minority, were brutally suppressed by police and security services. In the course of the confrontations, hundreds of people were arrested, dozens were injured by the security organs, a young man was killed in unclear circumstances.

The defendants, Dmitri Linter, Mark Siryk, Maxim Reva, and Dmitri Klensky, are being accused by the Estonian authorities of having organised the riots. They are facing - on the basis of a more than dubious indictment - up to five years of imprisonment.

Sahra Wagenknecht will meet among others the accused and their lawyers, and will also speak with members of various organisations of the Russian-speaking minority. She will also speak with a German living in Estonia who was arbitrarily arrested and beaten up by Estonian security forces in the course of the April events.