Rein Lang (born 4 July 1957) is an Estonian politician, a member of the Estonian Reform Party since 1995, and a diplomat. He was the Minister of Culture in Andrus Ansip's third cabinet until his resignation.

Personal life

Lang was born in Tartu. His father was appointed to work at the Soviet Embassy in Helsinki; consequently, Rein Lang grew up partly in Finland, becoming a fluent speaker of Finnish. He has championed Finnish-Estonian relations. Lang received his elementary and high school education at Tallinn English College (then known as the 7th High School of Tallinn) and graduated cum laude from the University of Tartu in 1980, earning a degree in law.

Lang cohabits and as of 2007 has one teenage daughter. His most popular programme, the weekly 'Midday Hour' (), has become legendary, and a subject of a number of jokes mostly associated with Valdo Jahilo. 'Of the state of the state' () was also popular.

Following his departure from the media business, Lang served as deputy mayor of Tallinn from 2001 to 2003 and was a member of Riigikogu from 2003 to 2005. He served as the Deputy Speaker of Riigikogu and chairman of its European Affairs Committee. In 2005, Lang was the Minister of Foreign Affairs for two months, from February to April. With the resignation of Juhan Parts, the prime minister at that time, a new cabinet was proposed by Andrus Ansip; there, Lang served as the Minister of Justice, a position he officially took when the new cabinet took an oath on 12 April 2005. As the Estonian Minister of Justice, Lang was involved in the Constitutional Pilsener project.

From 21 May 2009 to 4 June 2009 he was also the acting Minister of the Interior.

Controversies

Press enemy of 2004

In 2004, the Estonian Newspaper Association () labelled Lang the 'Year's Press Enemy'. The explanation provided in the press release cited Lang's snobbish attitude towards the press, exemplified by an email response in which Lang asked a county newspaper's correspondent to "not bother" him with any more requests for information. Lang has disputed this characterisation, and implied that Toomas Leito, leader of the Estonian Newspaper Association, was following a policy of "lynching Negroes".

Controversial "Delfi bill"

In autumn of 2005, Lang initiated a bill that would have allowed penalising web portals for anonymous comments left by their visitors. The bill, nicknamed the "Delfi bill" () after the Estonian web portal Delfi.ee, which is commonly associated with offensive user comments, was widely criticised and ended up rejected by the Riigikogu. Among other concerns, critics commonly pointed out that Delfi belonged to a media concern competing with AS Trio LSL, and questioned the minister's neutrality. The bill became law in June 2006.

The first lawsuit involving the Delfi bill was brought by Leo Pulst in late 2008. The party featured a performance of the play Adolf, an award-winning anti-fascist drama by Pip Utton, featuring a Nazi banner as a stage prop. In an additional note on the invitation Lang pointed out that the event was not intended as a fancy dress party; specifically, guests would not be expected to arrive in uniforms or bearing Nazi symbols. citing an Estonian newspaper which recalled a scandal that happened three years ago, when Prince Harry had a swastika on his sleeve during a birthday party.

This distortion was widely covered in the Estonian news media. In an explanatory opinion article, Lang stated "The Republic of Estonia has condemned Nazi crimes and my birthday was attended by people who, without exception, despise fascism."

"Wikigate" incident

On 23 July 2007 Lang's article on English Wikipedia was edited by a user identifying as "Kairioun", removing a large section on Lang's birthday controversy. After these deletions were consistently reverted, another user by the alias of Gerog112 performed a similar deletion many times, resulting in a 24-hour restriction of editing privileges (sometimes mistakenly reported as a three-month restriction), and made a number of bizarre statements in Estonian. News media quickly traced the user Kairioun to Kairi Õun, an advisor of Lang, leading to considerable coverage of the incident, which Henrik Roonemaa, in an analysis session in Tehnokratt, dubbed "Wikigate". Gerog112's real life identity remains unknown.

References

  • Official blog, sponsored by the Estonian Reform Party
  • A news item by Rossiya, the national TV channel of Russian Federation.