Communist Crimes Tribunal initiative gaining momentum in Europe

Over 200 European politicians, educational leaders, cultural and public figures have signed a petition to form an international court to condemn communist ideology and the regimes based on this doctrine as criminal and inhumane. The Board Member of the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory Sandra Vokk has joined the initiative in the name of the organisation.

The head of the international proposal Renato Cristin (Trieste University, Italy) based the proposal on the late Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky’s (1942-2019) idea, that communism must be finally condemned historically and morally, similarly to Nazism, which was justifiably denounced in the Nuremberg tribunal (1945-1946).

“We know well in Estonia, that Communism and National Socialism are more alike than different. Unfortunately, only one of the two liberty-denying and inhuman ideologies has been internationally condemned. People, who do not wish to acknowledge the criminal nature of communism due to various reasons, protect it as if were a noble idea that has been repeatedly falsely executed. Nevertheless, ideas have consequences. Almost 100 million victims all over the world are more than enough to prove, that communist ideology is deadly,” Vokk noted.

She added that Estonia contributes by establishing an International Museum for the Victims of Communism in the former Patarei prison in Tallinn, Estonia, where the stories of all the peoples who have experienced red terror will be told.

The international statement reads as follows: “Communist ideology is still alive and well in the world, both in states and parties that are openly communist as well as in political and cultural thought, that aspires to minimize and erase the crimes of communism, as if it is a good idea, which only happened to coincide with the rise of one brutal regime after another across decades and continents.”

Over 200 people who have signed the petition include Antonio Tajana (former president and current member of the European Parliament), professor Stéphane Courtois (historian, co-author of the “Black Book of Communism, France), Mart Laar (former Prime Minister of Estonia, Head of Board of the Estonian Bank), Vladimir Kara-Murza (Head of Boriss Nemtsov Fund, Russia), Erhard Busek (former vice-chancellor of Austria), Robert R. Reilly (Director of Westminster Institute, former director of „Voice of America“) etc.

The full text of the initiative can be found here: https://nuremberg.vladimirbukovsky.com/