Enn Tarto

Enn Tarto (25 September 1938 – 18 July 2021) was an Estonian politician who was a leading dissident during the Soviet occupation of Estonia.

On 4 November 1956, Tarto and other members of the Estonian Youth Brigade (Eesti Noorte Malev) distributed leaflets in support of Hungarian Revolution, 1956.

During the late 1970s, when Yuriy Andropov's anti-dissident campaign was at its peak, the dissidents of the three occupied Baltic republics decided to send a joint memorandum to the UN and the major powers.

The petition, known as the Baltic Appeal, was directed to the governments of the two German states, the USSR, signatories of the Atlantic Charter and the Secretary General of the UN (Kurt Waldheim).

On 23 August 1979, Baltic Appeal was approved by well-known Moscow dissidents, academic Andrei Sakharov, Viktor Nekipelov, Tatyana Velikanova, Malva Landa and Arina Ginzburg.

He participated in the radical pro-independence movement (while not being a member of ERSP) and was elected deputy of Congress of Estonia (Eesti Kongress).

He participated in the re-founded Estonian Defence League activities and in organisations promoting the commemoration of the victims of totalitarian regimes.

In 2005, Enn Tarto decided to leave SDE, which had chosen the line of collaborating with the People's Union (a joint list for Tallinn city council election), which mostly unites former communist party officials.