Baltic News Service

April 24, 2002

The lower-level Tallinn City Court fined on Wednesday three Russian nationalists for the instigation of ethnic hatred in their news sheets, although the prosecutor had demanded that their punishment by arrest. The court found the three young men, members of the Estonian regional organization of Russian National Unity, guilty of instigating ethnic hatred or preparing for it.

The threesome, (Allan Hantsom), 24, (Sergey Seleznev), 30, and (Sergey Vasechkin), 23, were fined from 1,750 to 2,000 kroons. They must also cover the cost of the linguistic analysis of their news sheets, 13,181 kroons, and compensation levies to the tune of 1,850 kroons each.

Allan Hantsom, the spiritual leader of the group, told BNS that he and his companions would certainly appeal to the circuit court and apply for acquittal. In the proceedings, which started in January, Hantsom denied they had instigated ethnic hatred in their news sheet Kolovrat, which he said had the aim of informing readers about political developments in Russia and providing objective treatment of both Russian history and the Orthodox faith to Russians residing in Estonia.

According to the indictment drawn up by the security police, Hantsom got the idea few years ago to launch in Estonia a regional mouthpiece of Russian National Unity, an organization that had been operating illegally in the country. In Kolovrat the defendants depicted Estonia as an ancient Russian territory and the Estonians as a treacherous, violent and dishonest people who hate Jews and Russians.

According to the opinion of linguistic experts from Tartu University's Russian and Slavonic philology department, issues of Kolovrat contained ethnic and political hatred both in content and form as well as direct appeals to violence and discrimination.

Hantsom, Seleznev and Vasechkin distributed nearly 2,000 copies of Kolovrat free via members of their club in different Estonian towns.

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