MOSCOW, January 15 (Itar-Tass) — The State Duma hopes that the public at large and EU legislators will press Estonia to abandon intentions to whitewash legislatively Nazi underlings, Itar-Tass learnt on Sunday from United Russia coordinator on patriotic upbringing of youth and first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee for CIS Affairs and Relations with Compatriots Dmitry Sablin.
Earlier this week, several leading German newspapers published articles with tough criticism of Estonia which intends, prodded by Defence Minister Mart Laar, to proclaim "freedom fighters" all who had fought against the Soviet Union. An appropriate bill is at the stage of drafting in Estonia.
It will be published in the spring for discussion. Then the document is planned to be submitted to the parliament for consideration.
“It is heartening that irresponsible intentions by Estonian authorities evoke serious anxiety not only in Russia, but also in German society,” Sablin noted. In the lawmaker’s opinion, “the European public should not put up silently with the policy of rehabilitation of Nazi criminals, continued in Estonia, the policy of concocting flimsy justifications for them and of ducking responsibility for their outrageous crimes”.
It is especially important, the legislator continued, that the present Estonia’s legislative initiative was blasted not only by some politicians who could be accused of bias, but the numerous German press, reflecting the country’s public opinion.
“It seems to me also necessary that the EU leadership and the European parliament that has never been an onlooker on cases of human rights violations, should give a principled assessment of this Tallinn’s move,” he stressed. “Europeans should pour a bucket of cold water on Estonian politicians, playing too much in their virtual opposition to the Soviet Union.”
“Legislative justification of heroization of Nazis and their acolytes is blasphemous and cannot be imagined by any normal man who would know even from hearsay about horrors, committed by fascists and their underlings,” Sablin said with conviction.
“Therefore, I believe that this question cannot be the case of only Estonia’s domestic policy, since it concerns all Europe which had suffered from Nazi atrocities,” he said.
“Given the bill is approved, it will be not only a dangerous attempt to trample underfoot the memory of those who, without sparing their own lives, fought the Nazi plague, but above all, the offence of memory of all fascist victims,” the lawmaker warned.
In this case, Estonia “will spit at those whose kith and kin died or suffered at fascist concentration camps which had been in great numbers in Estonia”, he added. In this context Sablin noted that “the concentration camp in Klooga 50 kilometres from Tallinn had been the first place in the world where horrors of the Holocaust were registered in documents.