Tartu district head Siim Linnard explained that the organizer wanted to hold the meeting as early as November. “In Estonia it is forbidden to hold demonstrations that incite hatred or violence,” he said.
At the beginning of November, a demonstration in support of the Palestinians took place in Tallinn, during which expressions of hatred against the Israeli state and people were used and the police fined five people. “To avoid such a situation and to ensure that the public meeting takes place in a peaceful manner, we wanted to proactively discuss organizational issues with the organizer of the Tartu rally,” Linnard said.
The ERR wrote that the representative of the organizers, Agnes Joyet, sent the police examples of the texts of the planned posters, which read, among other things, “2.2 million people live in an area as big as Muhu Island, which is bombed by a nuclear power!”, “End the executions of civilians!”, “Palestinians have the right to life” and “Do not be silent spectators of the genocide/killing of thousands of civilians” .
However, Joyet noted that since it is a public meeting, the organizers cannot predict the texts of the posters brought by other participants.
“Of course, as soon as we notice text that clearly incites violence or illegal activity on someone’s poster, we ask for it to be removed,” he promised.
Joyet also confirmed that the organizers’ sure desire is a peaceful meeting, a reasonable exchange of ideas and the expression of opinions.
The organizer must ensure that the meeting does not arouse enmity, the gathering has designated stewards responsible for on-site security and the peaceful conduct of the meeting. In Estonia everyone has the right to express their opinion as long as it does not violate the rights of others, Linnard confirmed and added that the police’s job is to ensure that these requirements are met and to prevent possible risks.
“It is normal for the police to meet the organizer of the public meeting, discuss potential risk areas, communicate with the security company or with the custodians who ensure order on site. We have carefully considered recording the meeting, but we banned it because, in our opinion, the organizer had not sufficiently considered the dangers and did not act to mitigate them,” Linnard explained.
After some communications and meetings with the organizers, the meeting was booked for December 2nd. By then, according to Linnard, the deficiencies had been eliminated. He said the December 2 meeting took place peacefully and there were no violations.
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2023-12-06 13:33:29
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