Former Russian minister takes Estonia to court over entry ban
Valery Tishkov, an academic and former Russian Minister of Nationalities, who was refused entry to Estonia on October 12, has launched a lawsuit to contest the entry ban handed to him by the Ministry of the Interior.
Tishkov appealed to the Tallinn administrative court to have the Ministry of the Interior's decision to refuse him entry to Estonia for a five-year period overturned.
The court's press secretary Anneli Vilu told uudised.err.ee that the appeal was put in on November 10, and the court has not yet had time to take a stance.
Tishkov has said that in his opinion, he has been banned from entering Estonia due to his views on the Baltic states and especially the way Latvia and Estonia handle national minorities.
Tishkov, now director of the Miklouho-Maclay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology at Moscow, was on his way to present on ethnic relations and conflicts in an event organized by the Impressum international media club at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Tallinn.
The Internal Security Service (ISS) have previously referred to associations between the Impressum club and the Russian foreign intelligence service, SVR.
The Russian academic was sent back to Moscow on October 13.