Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic along a waterway. After Stalin's death in March 1953, Stalinabad, was renamed to "Dushanbe" on 10 November 1961 as part of the De-Stalinization program. In February 1990, tensions between the Tajiks and Armenians squared off in the republic's capital Dushanbe. 26 people died and 565 more were injured and the Soviet troops put down the riots. Both Yaqub Salimov, the Interior Minister and the youth activists were convicted for the participation in the riots. Later on 24 August 1990, Tajik SSR declared its sovereignty over Soviet laws. By 1991, Tajikistan participated in a referendum in March as part of the
Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic March 1990, with the Reconstituent Seimas declaring Lithuania's independence restored. Since Lithuania's membership in the USSR was considered a violation of the international law and void, there was no formal procedure of secession from the USSR. Lithuania declared sovereignty on its territory on 18 May 1989 and declared independence from the Soviet Union on 11 March 1990 as the Republic of Lithuania. Lithuania was the first Baltic state to assert state continuity and the first Soviet Republic to remove "Soviet" from its name (though not the first Soviet Republic to assert its national sovereignty and the supremacy of its national