Other events in Baltic States

Lithuania on Monday paid tribute to a student whose self-immolation 40 years ago sparked mass anti-Soviet protests in the country, an unwilling Soviet republic at the time, AFP/LETA reports.

"Freedom is more valuable than a life. This message by Romas Kalanta has now been alive in our memories for four decades," President Dalia Grybauskaite said in a statement.

Ceremonies honouring Kalanta were held in the central city of Kaunas, where 19 yearold Kalanta set himself on fire on May 14, 1972, in a fatal protest against Soviet occupation, writes LETA/ELTA.

His suicide and a move by the authorities to hold a secret burial earlier than planned, brought thousands of young people out into the streets in protest, chanting anti-Soviet slogans and demands for freedom. After clashes with police and troops sent by Soviet authorities, over 400 people were arrested.

In an attempt to defuse tensions, the Soviets set up a special commission that declared Kalanta insane, but Lithuanians never accepted this conclusion.

The Soviet-era protests in Kaunas were the largest in Lithuania until the "singing revolution" which started in the Baltic States in 1987.