Double Standards and Suppression of Minority Rights in the Baltic States
Posted: 17th October 2025
Dear friends!
On October 13, 2025, three politicians and activists from Lithuania and Latvia — Antanas Kandrotas, Alexei Rosļikovs, and Igor Judins — were detained in Estonia and later deported. They had planned to attend a small meeting to discuss the worsening situation of Russian-speaking minorities in the Baltic states. The meeting was to include local participants from Estonia and focus on discrimination against Russian-speaking communities and refugees from Russia and Belarus. Instead, the Estonian police intercepted them at the border, declaring them a “threat to national security.” Within hours, they were expelled from the country.
This reaction has a very clear political meaning. In the Baltic states, any attempt to speak about the rights of Russian-speaking minorities is instantly framed as “Russian propaganda.” The same happens when you raise questions about discrimination against Belarusian or Russian refugees. Instead of investigating the alarming facts or allowing public debate, authorities silence the discussion by labeling it a “security issue.”
I personally find this extremely dangerous. It means that in the European Union — supposedly a democratic space — people are already being punished for their views. It doesn’t matter whether these activists are “pro-Russian,” “pro-American,” or “pro-Martian.” Rules and standards must be equal for everyone. If pro-American politicians can freely travel and meet in Estonia, then pro-Russian politicians should be able to do the same and opposite. Freedom of speech and assembly must not depend on political alignment. When restrictions start being imposed based on ideology or opinion, democracy collapses into something resembling the authoritarian systems like Belarus that the Baltic states claim to oppose.
Imagine if something similar happened in Belarus: a group of activists wanted to meet to discuss the rights of refugees from the East or the Roma minority, and the authorities immediately arrested them, calling them “foreign agents.” The entire European press would condemn such actions as authoritarian. Yet when the same happens in the EU, it is quietly justified as “protecting national security”. And… silence everywhere. This double standard destroys the credibility of human rights in Europe.
Security services are gaining unrestricted power to decide who can speak, travel, or assemble. It is enough to say that someone “can pose a threat to national security,” and they are banned, deported, silenced, inprisoned. But where is the evidence? If there are claims of “propaganda,” then present the facts and let independent observers decide what is true and what is not. The refusal to engage in such examination shows that the real issue is not propaganda but the unwillingness to acknowledge systemic discrimination against entire ethnic and linguistic groups.
What we see here is not isolated incidents but a pattern of structural discrimination and institutionalized ethnic bias — a form of systemic racism against Russian-speaking communities and Eastern refugees. It is a convenient position for Baltic governments: declare yourself under threat from Russia (real or imagined), and then justify any repressive measure as “defense of democracy.” Under this cover, they can exclude, silence, and marginalize thousands of residents and EU citizens based on ethnicity, language, or political opinion — and still be praised internationally as defenders of freedom.
This is not democracy. This is fear used as a political weapon.
References:
• The Insider — Estonia detains three politicians from Latvia and Lithuania, Oct 13 2025
• Delfi.ee report with Interior Minister’s statement
• ERR News coverage
• Absatz Media
https://absatz.media/news/137202-v-estonii-zaderzhali-oppozicionnyh-politikov-iz-latvii-i-litvy
• Tek.fm
https://news.tek.fm/news/423625
Warm regards,
Olga Karach