Ambassador Quits Estonia Over Gay Abuse

The Dutch ambassador to Estonia has asked to be assigned to another country after his male partner suffered repeated racist and homophobic abuse on the streets of the Baltic state. Hans Glaubitz asked to be transferred to the Dutch consulate in Montreal after the insults against his partner, a black Cuban, in the capital, Tallinn. The incidents highlight the poor human rights record of one of the EU's newest members, which Moscow has accused of treating its ethnic Russian population as second-class citizens.

Mr Glaubitz said: "It is not very nice to be regularly abused by drunken skinheads as a 'nigger' and to be continuously gawped at as if you have just stepped out of a UFO."

His partner has been named in the media as Raúl García Lao, a Cuban dancer. In 1997 the couple were based in post-apartheid South Africa and did not have problems there, said Tessa Martens, a spokeswoman for the Dutch foreign ministry. She said there were "some severe incidents" of racist and homophobic abuse in Tallinn that had gone on "long enough". She declined to give details, but said the incidents were the sole reason for Mr Glaubitz's transfer request.

He has been ambassador since September and he will leave for Montreal in the coming months.

She said the Estonian authorities said they "regretted the incidents very much".