Martin Šmutov, the editor-in-chief of evening newspaper Õhtuleht, one of the most influential media outlets in Estonia, has made an open apology for publishing propaganda after it agreed to print an article on Xinjiang by China’s Ambassador to Estonia Li Chao. On April 15, Õhtuleht carried a full page of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda in its paid advertisement section written by Li, who tried to refute reports of concentration camps, forced labor, and genocide against Uyghurs and other minorities groups in Xinjiang as “lies and rumors.” The article pushed the CCP-approved narrative on the situation in Xinjiang, igniting controversy in the former Soviet country in eastern Europe. Šmutov, who immediately met with backlash over the article, apologized to the paper’s readers in an interview with ERR news, also known as Estonian Public Broadcasting in English. He expressed that though the advertisement was legally admissible, the editorial staff had committed an error …