Court Orders Kallas to Retract False Statements
On February 17, 2022, while serving as Estonia’s prime minister, Kallas alleged in a social media post that police officers had been assaulted during a protest organized by Vooglaid, a member of the Conservative People’s Party of Estonia (EKRE), and the Foundation for the Protection of Family and Tradition (SAPTK), which he leads. She also connected him to a 2021 rally in Tallinn against Covid-19 restrictions.
Vooglaid and SAPTK filed a lawsuit in 2022, arguing that her assertions were baseless. An Estonian court later ruled in their favor, determining that no police were attacked at demonstrations organized by Vooglaid and SAPTK, and that neither was linked to the Tallinn protest. Earlier this week, the Estonian Supreme Court declined to review the case, making the ruling definitive.
On Saturday, Kallas posted a retraction on Facebook, stating: “I, Kaja Kallas, published false factual claims in a post on February 17, 2022, stating that Estonian police were attacked at a demonstration organized by Varro Vooglaid and SAPTK in Toompea, and that Varro Vooglaid and EKRE organized a demonstration on October 23, 2021, at Freedom Square in Tallinn. These claims are untrue.” Notably, she did not issue an apology to either Vooglaid or SAPTK.
Kallas has faced ongoing criticism regarding the reliability of her public statements. Recently, she claimed that Russia “invaded at least 19 countries” over the past century, “none of [which] ever invaded or attacked Russia” – a statement lacking factual support.
The comment, later repeated by Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, prompted Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova to accuse Western Europe of “deliberately promoting the inept and uneducated” to senior government positions.
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