One of the leaders of the pro-Russian Koos party and Estonian citizen Aivo Peterson was sentenced to 14 years in prison for treason by Harju District Court on Thursday.
The trial, which began in November 2023, dealt with allegations of treason against Estonian citizens Peterson and Dmitri Rootsi, as well as claims that Peterson and Russian citizen Andrei Andronov acted to undermine Estonia’s independence.
The charges were connected to meetings with Russian politicians, aligning policy positions, the organization of an independent civil defense organization, and a Russian-funded press trip to occupied Ukraine.
According to the indictment, Peterson and Rootsi, based on instructions received from Russia, knowingly and in an organized manner assisted Russia and people acting on behalf of Russian authorities in non-violent activities directed against the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Estonia from October 2022 to March 10, 2023.
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If you want to use history to argue, you should know it: The last opposition party that was banned in (west) germany was the communist party KPD in 1956. Which was a antidemocratic party controlled by Moscow and East Berlin. Which is kind of what we are talking about here. Before that the “Sozialistische Reichspartei” SRP was banned in 1952, which branded itself as a sucessor to the NSDAP.
I “cheated”.
There is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_Mahler but he has explicitly broken the law in a clear way.
No. The Estonian was about to create an organisation, but then he was locked up and no organisation was forbidden. It’s not the same.