Anti-Soviet Protest Held in Finland
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HELSINKI, Finland — Two days before the start of the 10th anniversary celebrations of the Helsinki accords, a peaceful protest was held in the Finnish capital on Sunday in what was thought to be the first anti-Soviet demonstration in Finland since the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.
The protest by about 400 demonstrators drew a crowd of about 2,000, police estimated.
Police permitted the protesters to march to a downtown churchyard for one demonstration, but blocked streets to prevent a second demonstration outside the Soviet Embassy. The protesters then peacefully dispersed.
The protest was organized by Swedish, American and other protesters with ties to Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. They were protesting the annexation of the three Baltic states by the Soviet Union early in World War II and purported Soviet human rights violations.
The demonstration was unusual in Finland, which has a special relationship with the neighboring Soviet Union.
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