of Baltic states' membership in the Soviet Union were brought before the European Court of Human Rights. The Court made a number of rulings that affirmed the Baltic states were occupied and forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union until 1991. On 16 March 2006 the Grand Chamber of the Court made the following statement in the case of Tatjana Ždanoka vs Latvia (paragraph 119 of its judgment): Latvia, together with the other Baltic States, lost its independence in 1940 in the aftermath of the partition of Europe between Germany and the USSR agreed by Adolf Hitler's Germany and Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union by way of the secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, an agreement contrary to the generally recognised principles of international law. The ensuing annexation of Latvia by the Soviet Union was orchestrated and conducted under the authority of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the Communist Party of Latvia (CPL) being a satellite branch of the CPSU. Subsequently to Ždanoka, a number of other judgments and decisions were adopted by Chambers (smaller formations) of the Court in cases regarding issues ranging from the restriction of political rights of former Soviet politicians to criminal conviction for crimes against humanity, whereby the Court noted that illegal occupation of Baltic States by the USSR had taken place in 1940 (see Kolk vs Estonia, Penart vs Estonia). In Penart vs Estonia, the Court declared inadmissible an application by a former USSR internal security service operative Vladimir Penart, convicted of crimes against humanity by an Estonian court for organizing the killing of "a person hiding in the woods" most probably a member of the Forest Brothers, a militant anti-Soviet movement in 1953. The court stated following: The Court notes, first, that Estonia lost its independence as a result of the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (also known as "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact"), concluded on 23 August 1939, and the secret additional protocols to it. Following an ultimatum to set up Soviet military bases in Estonia in 1939, a large-scale entry of the Soviet army into Estonia took place in June 1940. The lawful government of the country was overthrown and Soviet rule was imposed by force. The totalitarian communist regime of the Soviet Union conducted large-scale and systematic actions against the Estonian population, including, for example, the deportation of about 10,000 persons on 14 June 1941