The Estonian Internal Security Service (, officially , KAPO for short) is a central

national security National security, or national defence (national defense in American English), is the security and Defence (military), defence of a sovereign state, including its Citizenship, citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of ...

institution of

Republic of Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

. Its purposes are centered on enforcing constitutional order. The Estonian Internal Security Service has primary investigative jurisdiction in some offences committed by state officials; countering

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...

;

incitement to hatred Hate speech is a term with varied meaning and has no single, consistent definition. It is defined by the ''Cambridge Dictionary'' as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as ...

;

crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are certain serious crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against civilians. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during both peace and war and against a state's own nationals as well as ...

and peace, including

war crimes A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hos ...

; illegal handling and trafficking of firearms, ammunition, explosives, radioactive material or other

strategic material Strategic material is any sort of raw material that is important to an individual's or organization's strategic plan and supply chain management. Lack of supply of strategic materials may leave an organization or government vulnerable to disrup ...

s; and the protection of

state secrets Classified information is confidential material that a government deems to be sensitive information which must be protected from unauthorized disclosure that requires special handling and dissemination controls. Access is restricted by law or ...

. It also fills

counterintelligence Counterintelligence (counter-intelligence) or counterespionage (counter-espionage) is any activity aimed at protecting an agency's Intelligence agency, intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering informati ...

duties. The Estonian Internal Security Service is administered as an agency of the Estonian Ministry of Internal Affairs. While many of the Estonian Internal Security Service's activities are classified, its overview of the status of national security is published yearly as the ''Kaitsepolitsei aastaraamat''.

History

Kaitsepolitseiamet was first established on April 12, 1920. From 1925 to 1940 the institution was known as Political Police (''Poliitiline politsei'', abbreviated ''PolPol''). The PolPol fought against subversive activities of political extremists, espionage, desertion, smuggling and terrorism. The most discussed targets were the

Estonian communists Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also * ...

whose party had been declared an illegal organisation following the failed December coup, forcing them to operate clandestinely and through various legal fronts, usually as workers' organisations. Communists were supported by the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, who had publicly accepted the principles not recognizing the parliamentary order, seeing terrorism as a legitimate activity. Similarly, the PolPol surveyed pro-Nazi oriented Baltic Germans and extreme monarchists of the White Russian emigres. When the Soviet Union annexed Estonia on June 17, 1940 the PolPol was one of the first institutions which was practically ''in corpore'' repressed - almost all of its employees were deported in the course of the

June deportation The June deportation of 1941 (, , ) was a mass deportation of tens of thousands of people during World War II from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, present-day western Belarus and western Ukraine, and present-day Moldova – territories which had been ...

s; by the end of the

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

more than 90% of the PolPol employees and their families had been killed.

Re-establishment

The Estonian Internal Security Service was reestablished on March 1, 1991, as a part of restoration of Estonian independence from the Soviet occupation. Until June 18, 1993, the Estonian Internal Security Service was a department of the central police structure; then, it was reorganised as a distinct entity. Following adoption of a new law of security services on March 1, 2001, the status of the Estonian Internal Security Service was reclassified from a police institution to a security service. According to an Amnesty International report from 2009: "In June, the Estonian Security Police Board published its annual report which made serious allegations against the

Legal Information Centre for Human Rights Legal Information Centre for Human Rights is a non-governmental organisation based in Estonia, according to Hanne-Margret Birckenbach, is "particularly involved in promoting the concerns of Russian-speaking inhabitants and with outstanding conta ...

(LICHR), an NGO promoting and defending the rights of those belonging to linguistic minorities. The report stated that the LICHR was used by the Russian Federation to carry out scientific research for propaganda purposes, and accused the LICHR of trying to conceal the specific sources of funding it received from the Russian Federation. These allegations were widely seen as an attempt by the government to misrepresent the LICHR and to undermine its attempts to secure the necessary financial and social support to carry out its work." Criticism of the Estonian Internal Security Service has been presented by

Risto Teinonen The Estonian Independence Party (, EIP) was a far-right nationalist political party in Estonia. The small party, founded in 1999, never had any significant success in the elections, and it was dissolved in 2022. One of the principal aims of the pa ...

, a Finnish lawyer and neo-Nazi living in Tallinn. In 2009, Teinonen launched criminal proceedings against the Estonian Internal Security Service in a Tallinn court, accusing the organization of the politically motivated persecution of innocent people.

References

External links

*
Julgeolekuasutuste Seadus, Riigi Teataja I 2001, 7, 17
{{Domestic national intelligence agencies Counterintelligence agencies Law enforcement agencies of Estonia Estonian intelligence agencies