Ethnic Russian protestors Government of Estonia The Bronze Night (Estonian: pronksiöö), also known as the April Unrest (aprillirahutused) and April Events (aprillisündmused), was a number of riots in Estonia surrounding the controversial 2007 relocation of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn, a Soviet World War II memorial in Tallinn.

[4] Disagreement over the appropriateness of the action led to mass protests and riots (accompanied by looting), lasting for two nights,[5][6] the worst in Estonia since the Soviet reoccupation in 1944.

In the early morning hours of April 27, 2007, after the first night's rioting, the Government of Estonia decided, at an emergency meeting, to relocate the monument immediately, referring to security concerns.

"[14][15] On September 24, 1939, warships of the Red Navy appeared off Estonian ports and Soviet bombers began to patrol over Tallinn and the nearby countryside.

According to the European Court of Human Rights, the lawful government of Estonia in 1940 was overthrown and Soviet rule was imposed by force.

[30] As reported by Time magazine in 1940: "Those who had failed to have their passports stamped for voting Estonia into the USSR were allowed to be shot in the back of the head by Soviet tribunals.

Some Russian associations, media, religious leaders and officials, as well as Amnesty International,[34] accuse Estonia of human rights violations.

[42] World War II Red Army veterans and representatives of the Russian-speaking population in Estonia have continued to gather at the monument on certain dates, celebrating May 9 (Victory Day) and September 22 ("Liberation of Tallinn" in 1944).

To preserve public order and out of security concerns, the police helped the group to leave the area, along with their Estonian flag, and let the veterans' meeting with the Soviet symbols continue.

[62] According to the article in Eesti Päevaleht, in Russia special services encouraged media to discuss the Bronze Soldier often and in a particularly emotional way, as a way of influencing political opinion.

[63] Estonian Police cordoned off the square and nearby streets in the early morning of April 26, 2007, in preparation for archaeological excavations in search of the remains and, if found, their relocation.

By midnight the riots had spread around the centre of Tallinn, with massive damage to property—a total number of 99 cases of vandalism, including cars that had been turned upside down, broken and looted shop windows, pillaged bars and kiosks.

[90] As per September 2007, 13 mostly Estonian-speaking persons had been arrested by Estonian police on suspicion of beating but not stabbing[91] of Dmitri Ganin; all had been subsequently released pending the end of the investigation.

[96] As there had been too many arrests for the normal pre-trial detention centers, many suspects were taken to a hastily set up holding area in the Terminal D of the Tallinn Seaport.

No major incidents were reported, but some drivers tried to block the traffic in the center of Tallinn by intentionally driving at a slow speed and excessively using their car horns.

A Russian State Duma delegation led by the former FSB Director Nikolay Kovalyov also arrived in Estonia, in what was described as a "fact-finding mission".

[106] Later in the day, the reappearance of the bronze soldier threw the Duma's fact finding mission off-course, with delegation leader Kovalyov saying that he had not been invited by the Estonian authorities to the ceremony at the military cemetery.

[110] Estonia's Foreign Minister Urmas Paet said that the European Union has promised to help end a siege at the Estonian embassy in Moscow.

[111] Paet had spoken to his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier who "promised speedy assistance from the European Union to normalise the situation around the Estonian embassy in Moscow."

[112] The two-day visit by the Russian fact finding delegation was ostensibly set up to defuse a diplomatic dispute over the Bronze Soldier statue, but it only appeared to have escalated the feud.

[114] On May 9, it was reported that, as agreed with the City Park Office, the Ministry of Defence was planting an enormous flower garden on the site, as a part of the post-exhumation restoration work mandated by the War Graves Act.

Claims regarding a fourth, Master Sergeant Stepan Hapikalo, are pending arrival of his relatives, currently living in Ukraine, to Estonia for DNA analysis.

[citation needed] Eight of the exhumed remains—those unclaimed so far—were reburied at the military cemetery, next to the relocated monument, on July 3, 2007, in presence of the Estonian minister of defence, other officials, and dozens of diplomats, as well as various press representatives.

[118] The Russian ambassador to Estonia, Nikolay Uspensky, declined invitation to attend, as an expression of Russia's highest-level disapproval of "demounting the monument, the exhumation, and the accompanying attempts to revise history to suit political conjuncture".

[118] However, he attended a religious memorial service for the fallen, held by the head of the Estonian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate, three hours after the reburial.

[119] Ezmiralda Menshikova and Svetlana Gnevasheva, daughters of Ivan Syssoyev, a Red Army partorg who died in Tallinn in 1944, filed suit against the government demanding that the Bronze Soldier be returned to its original location near the National Library as a grave marker.

[121] On December 11, 2008, the trial of men charged with organising of the riots ended; most of the last day was spent on delivering a lengthy judgement.

In November 2007, the UN Committee Against Torture has considered Estonia's report and expressed concern over "allegations of brutality and excessive use of force by law enforcement personnel, especially with regard to the disturbances that occurred in Tallinn in April 2007, well documented by a detailed compilation of complaints".

[127] In 2013, the same committee noted that it was "concerned at information that no prosecutions resulted from official applications to the Chancellor of Justice or the Public Prosecutor’s Office in relation to allegations of brutality and excessive use of force by law enforcement personnel during the events which took place in Tallinn in April 2007" (Para.

[129] In 2011, the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (Council of Europe) has published its report on its 2007 visit to Estonia, stating that many of the persons detained by the police in connection with the April 2007 events in Tallinn were not granted all the fundamental safeguards (the right of those concerned to inform a close relative or another third party of their choice of their situation, the right of access to a lawyer, and the right of access to a doctor) from the outset of their detention: while many of the persons concerned were allowed to contact someone and to be assisted by a lawyer only when brought before a judge, a number of detained persons claimed that their requests to see a doctor whilst in police custody had been denied, even when they displayed visible injuries.