15 in Anti-Stalin Rally in Latvia Reported Held

Fifteen people were detained during a rally in the Soviet Baltic republic of Latvia commemorating the deportations of Latvians to Siberia by Josef Stalin during World War II, a participant said on Saturday.

Ronalds Gaubis told reporters by telephone that 3,000 people took part in the rally in the Latvian capital of Riga on Friday night and that he and 14 other people were detained.

The news agency Tass confirmed reports that a number of people had been detained at rallies in Latvia and the neighboring Soviet republic of Estonia on Friday.

Tass said that thousands of people had taken part in the rally and said “a handful of irresponsible people” had attempted to turn the occasion into a protest.

“Hysterical outcries, whistles, insults to representatives of the public and authorities, whose calls to observe public order went unheeded, were discordant to the mood in which most people came,” Tass said.

It said nine people--six less than the number mentioned by Gaubis-- were detained “and brought to administrative account” after “vigorous actions by the public order squads.”

The Soviet agency also reported that five arrests had been made at a similar rally in the Estonian capital Tallinn, which it said had been disrupted by dissident groups.

The once-independent Baltic republics of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, incorporated into the Soviet Union under a pact with Germany in 1940, have seen several outbreaks of nationalist unrest in recent months.