BASKET III IMPLEMENTATION OF THE HELSINKI ACCORDS HEARINGS BEFORE THE COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE NINETY-FIFTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION ON IMPLEMENTATION OF THE HELSINKI ACCORDS VOLUME IV SOVIET HELSINKI WATCH REPORTS ON REPRESSION JUNE 3 1977 U S POLICY AND THE BELGRADE CONFERENCE JUNE 6 1977 Printed for the use of the Commission on· Security and Cooperation in Europe U S GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 92-302 WASHINGTON 1977 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents _ U S Government Printing Office Washington D C 0402 l i • · r t·· P· l · 0 ' · -v • L - ' I · i • • f I ' COMMISSION ot· ECUltITY ND' cod ttATION IN EUROPE DANTE B FASCELL Florida Chairman CLAIBORNE PELL Rhode Island Co-Chairman ' DICK CLARK Iowa JONATHAN B BINGHAM New York PATRIIS K 1 LJJ J rY V r opt · · · PAUL SIMO r-r Illlno_is · • · · 1 RICH Rb ·sTONE 'Florida' ' SIDNEY R YATES ·mtnols · · · ·' ' • CLIFFORD P CASE New Jersey JOHN BUCHANAN Alabama ROBERT DOLE Kansas MILLICENT FENWICK New Jersey ' a g'pm CER Otr' VER iiilir hireftor' anii Gener ai douniiel L ' 'c ALt'RED FRIENDLY ' Jr Deputy_· statr Director ESTER Kunz Staff Assistant 1 _ - j · _· nEo DoNovAN statr·Assistant ·· · SUSAN PEDERSON Sta tr Assistant CATHY COS IAN Staff Assistant HELEN- SEN Staff Intern LYNNE DAVIDSON Staff Intern MARIO •IiATOaa Coordinator l c • · NE GJPLc Ooordjnat r · II • 00 NTENTS · -WITNESSES IMPLEMENTATION OF THE HELSINKI ACCORDS SOVIET HELS NKI WATCH REP RTS ON REPRESSION · Friday June 3 1977 Villiams Edward Bennett counsel for Aleksandr Ginzlmrg_________ Alekseeva Lyudmila a founding memlJer of the Puhlic Group to Promote Observance of the Helsinki Agreements in the U S S R_______ Voronina Lidia assistant to the Group to Promote in its investigation of the persecution of F'undamentalist Christians__________________ Kline Edward sponsor of Khronika Press assisting in translating Alekseeva and Voronina's testimony_____________________________ Pag a 5 2l 29 20 U S POLICY AND THE BELGRADE CONFERENCE Monday June 6 1977 Vance Cyrus R Secretary of State accompanied by 0 Matthew Nimetz Counselor to the Secretary of State_______________________ Sherer Albert Jr Ambassador Head of the American delegation to Belgrade Review Conference____________________________________ 8G 86 MATERIAL SUBllCIT'fED FOR THE RECORD Friday June 3 1977 A collection of materials and communications submitted by Edward Bennett Williams from the U S S R protesting arrests of Aleksandr Ginzburg and Yuri Orlov ---------------------------------Freedom for Aleksandr Ginzbnrg Statement of Support for the Ginzburg Family Other letters of support for Ginzburg A letter from Irina Sergeevna Zholkovskaya to Amnesty Internationnl A letter to the Heads of the Participating States of the Helsinki Agreement J Jxcerpts from an open letter written by Yuri Fedorov Summary translation of the Christian Committee for the Defense of Rights of Believers in the U S S R Statement by the Council of Evangelical Christian Baptists Pentecostalists in the U S S R · An appeal from Vladimir Shelkov chairman of the All-Union Church of Faithful and 'ree Seventh-Day Adventists to the President of the United States Jimmy Carter Statement to the Yorkers of the Renault Factories of France· Declaration by I S Zholkovskaya Statement to the press from I Valitova and I Zholkovskaya aml Excerpts from an open letter from Tatyana Khodorovich and Victor Nekipelov A Pre-Belgrade summary document submitted by the Public Group To Promote Observance of the Helsinki Agreements in the U S S R___ III 17 39 l I IV AlTBNDIX Friday June 3 1977 An appeal to World Public Opinion on behalf of Yury Belov by the Working Commission for the Investigation of the Abuse of Psychi- Pan atry for Political Purposes issued February 15 1977-____________ 59 Document No 2 by the Public Group To Promote Observance of the Helsinki Agreements in the U S S R on the Interruption of Human Contact in the Sphere of International Postal and Telephone 61 Communications issued on June 27 1976________________________ Submission for the record by· Dr Andrew M Sessler director Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory a statement on the arrest and detention of Prof Yuri Orlov a telegram to the U S S R Academy of Science signed by 225 scientists and a biography of Prof Yuri Fyodorovich Orlov --------------------------------------------------------M Documents of the Ukrainian Public Group To Promote Implementation of the Helsinki Accords Kiev Ukraine Memorandum 4-9 and other letters___________________________________________________ 69 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE HELSINKI ACCORDS SOVIET HELSINKI WATCH REPORTS ON REPRESSION FRIDAY JUNE 3 1977 COllil USSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE Washington D O The Commission met pursuant to notice in room 2154 Rayburn House Office Building at 10 a m Hon Dante Fascell chairman presiding In attendance Commissioners Fascell Simon Dole Fenwick Buchanan and Bingham Also present R Spencer Oliver counsel and staff director Alfred Friendly Jr deputy director · OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN FASCELL Mr F ASCELL The Commission will come to order Today is the first anniversary of the creation of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe and the occasion of the 13th public hearing the Commission has held on implementation of the 1975 Helsinki accords It is entirely fitting that this hearing should be devoted to the work and thEI plight of the first individuals to utilize those accords as instruments for advancing international respect for human rights Those men and women live in the Soviet Union They belong to the Public Group to Promote Observance of the Helsinki Agreements in the U S S R in Moscow or to similar Helsinki-watch organizations established in the Ukraine Lithuania Georgia and Armenia Merely for trying to inform the public and leaders of the 35 signatory states about violations of the accords in the U S S R they have been subjected to continued and increasingly severe official attack Many of them have been pushed into exile · Seven have been jailed And this week we learned that Anatoly Shcharansky one of their most courageous spokesmen faces treason charges as groundless as they are ominous ' Mr Shcharansky is a young Jew who has been waiting 4 years for permission-repeatedly denied-to move to Israel where his wife has lived since 1974 But while he was forced to stay behind in the Soviet U nion he gave his energy and his talents to a cause that went beyond hJS personal struggle or even the struggle of his fellow Jews for the right to emigrate He dedicated himself to confronting repression with publicity · 1 ·' 2 For that he and his follow Helsinki-'ivatchers are paying now w th their own freedom Anatoly Shcharansky could be made to pay with his life The idea that he and other Jewish refuseniks -a group of people under constant KGB surveillance-could be engaged in espionage for tlie CIA is transparent nonsense The' charge against him is an J ttempt to inflame the old spec r of apt -Semitism J o m_ake such a c rnrge_ n the eve of the Helsmln s1gnatones' first meetmg m Belgrade 1s to d1spla y utter contempt for the principles of the Helsinki accords The campai rn of arrest exile and harassment also seems to be part of a renewed Soviet effort to ·stifle· all domestic dissent to persecute and intimidate the advocates of human rights into silence and conformity The remarkable continuation of the work of the Soviet Helsinb-watchers-in the £ace o £ such repression-is proof that their spirit has not been broken The second colleQtion of their reports which the Com issicm-isissutng today is tangible evidence of their en duranc e- ' and convincing documentation of the evils they seek to combat The reports speak only of violations of the Helsinki accords but the act of compiling tliose · reports speaks of a great dedication to the accords themselves That dedication should give us fresh encouragement to press on with the task of making the Helsinki accords work-work for a decent world where men and women like the Helsinki-watchers in the Soviet Union will no longer have to suffer for their ideals and ours Senator Dole do you have some opening remarks · REMARKS OF COMMISSIONER DOLE Mr DoLE Thank you Mr Chairmal I have a very brief statement that I would like to submit 'commend you for your outstanding job as a chairman As the newest member I would like-to commend the members of the staff and the chairman for their excellent work I have a conflict this morning The first American pilot shot down in Laos is being buried this morning in Arlington Cemet ry and I have to attend that ceremony -· I tried to glance very quickly a t the statement pf our illustrious witness Mr Williams · · ·• · I share the comments just expressed by the chairman and I consider the Soviet decisiqn to bring Anatoly Shcharansky to trial for treason the most flagrant in a series of -Helsinki Final Act violations yet perpetrated by the Soviet Union For me and I think for many other _Americans this action is an outrage · A- number of my colleaguesSen ite colleagues-and I signed a letter to Secretary Brezhnev protest mg the irrest of Anatoly Shcharansky last March I met with M rs Shcharansky wlien she was in the United States recently and I was moved by her sincerity and the manner in which she presented her husband's case I have a so signed letters to Brezhnev on behalf of My kola Rudenko and Oleks1y Tykhy members of the Helsinki monitorino- o-roup in Kiev ai id Yuri Or-lov and Aleksandr Ginzburg members f related group m Mosco_w ¥hen two more members of the Kiev group were arrested m Apnl I protested that action I have written to Ambassafil 'or Anatoly Dobrynin requesting information on the Yakirs a Jewish 3 fainily that requested ·and wererefuseclexit visas lam a Ware of th efforts of members of this Commission and many other Members of Congress who have· written similar letters on behalf of other refuseniks To my knowledge none of ourletters have received a response from the Soviet Government Along with other members of the He isinki Cmprnission I have sat through numerous hearings listening to testimony which underscored Soviet violations o f those· Helsinki Fi Q al ·Act provisions which addressed such issues as free emigration family reunification religious liberties and rights of nationalminorities · · · The Soviet decision to hold a show trial for Shcharansky with phony evidence and counterfeit witnesses combined with the earlier arrest of members of Helsinki monitoring groups in Russia Ukraine and most recently in Georgia remind me of the Stalinist purges of the 1930's Since all of these actions are occurring now on the eve of the Bel grade Conference the only conclusion I can reach is that the Soviet Union is engaging in deliberately provocative behavior designed to test America's commitment to human rights We cannot allow the Soviets to scare us into adopting a softer posture at Belgrade The Helsinki Commission and the Congress of the United States must stand behind President Carter and demonstrate to the Soviet Union that human rights is not a transitory political ploy to be negotiated away in return for other favorable considerations but a principle that lies at the core of the American concept for a just world Order vVith Belgrade less than two weeks away I believe it is time that the members of this Commission insist on the inclusion of human 1rights violations on the Belgrade agenda We must urge our U S -delegation to reiterate in precise and unequivocal terms the commitment of the American people to human rights in the context of an ultimate enlargement or human freedom throughout the world It is with these reasons and thoughts in mind that I have introduced-along with Mrs Fenwick in the House-a res_olution which ·would reflect the attitude of this Commission and which would at the same time underscore the commitment of the Congress and the Ameri-can people to human rights Mr Chairman I thank you very much Mr F ASCELL Congressman Simon REMARKS OF CONGRESSMAN SIMON Mr S1 uoN I would concur first of all Mr Chairman with your ·excellent statement and that by Senator Dole and I would just add one other point I think it is very easy for others to misunderstand our system of ·govern_ment and how we respond to criticism The Soviets hav not 1iesitated criticizing some things in our soc ety and sometimes they nave needed criticism And we have of late properly criticized the Soviets when they have failed to comply with Basket III · · I f they think by these severe measures that they have taken in recent weeks that they can silence the Government of the United States or 11his Commission or this Congress they badly misread the reaction 4 What they are doing is· throwing flames on the fire rather than putting the fire out · There is one way to silence us to silence our criticism and that is to move ahead in compliance with the spirit of Helsinki Thank you Mr Chairman Mr FASCELL Mrs Fenwick REMARKS OF COMMISSIONER FENWICK Mrs FENWICK Thank you Mr Chairman I think the Soviets have not hesitated to say quite clearly that they will continue the ideological struggle that they feel entitled to move with tanks and troops if nee• essary in protection of that struggle wherever they feel it threatened They say that quite calmly and at the same time say that they do want to have an exchange between the nations of the vVest and themselves I think with equal calmness with equal determination and with equal confidence we must proclaim that the basis of our actions and of our laws is a deep and true concern for the individual and his rights That is what divides the two societies In one the state dominates and the individual is a tool in the other the individual and his rights are considered sacred I think that we have every right to uphold this principle to make it the basis of our actions and of our speeches in the same way that they do-this does not mean an end to dctente What is the alternative A vicious cold war But it does mean that we are not going to stop any more than they are We are not going to stop and we do not expect them to stop We know what we are dealing with and they had ·better know what they are dealing with ve have an equal right to stand firm on something that I think is our greatest strength-I do not like to use the word weapon-our greatest strength in the world If we really mean it-if we really care about people and are prepared to stand up for them-I do not think that that can fail to have an echo in the minds of people in the free and third worlds Thank you Mr Chairman Mr FASCELL Do we have a vote now Mrs FENWICK Yes Mr FASCELL ve win stand in recess for a few minutes and we will be right back Short recess taken Mr F ASCELL The Commission will come to order Our first witness Edward Bennett Williams is a distinguished vVashington trial lawyer In a great tradition he certainly is an attorney for the damned He has defended such unpopular men as the late Senator Joseph McCarthy the late Representative Adam Clayton Powell financier Louis volfson and labor leader Jimmy Hoffa Among his clients in the sixties were two Soviets accused of espionage in the United States His book One Man's Freedom is an eloquent statement of a basic tenet of our civil liberties The right of even the most detested individuals to the best possible legal defense Mr Williams appears as our first witness today on behalf of another outcast Aleksandr Ginzburg a leader of the Soviet Helsinki Watch 5 for 3 years the representative in Moscow of the Solzhenitsyn fund to aid political prisoners and now-for the third time in his 40 years-a political prisoner himself This Commission of course is not the courtroom in which Mr Williams would wish to appear but he has been barred from conducting Aleksandr Ginzburg's defense inside the Soviet Union We welcome you Mr Williams as an advocate not just for a man but for a caus and for respect for the Helsinki accords We are delighted to welcome you here today Mr WILLIAMS Thank you very much Mr Chairman STATEMENT OF EDWARD BENNETT WILLIAMS Mr vVrLLIAMS Mr Chairman and members of the Commission I wish to thank you for inviting me to be here with you today As you pointed out Mr Chairman I represent Aleksandr Ginzburg a brave heroic young fighter for freedom inside the Soviet Union whom I have never had the honor or the privilege to meet and it appears that there are those who are not in any hurry to see me get that honor or privilege It has been world-wide news that Aleksandr Ginzburg was arrested just 4 months ago today The manner of his arrest I think gives us some very unsettling insights into the Soviet system of criminal justice On the night of February 3 he left his apartment in Moscow to make a phone call because he had been deprived of any phone service as a member of the Helsinki atch Group He was arrested and he was spirited off to Kaluga Prison some 200 kilometers away from Moscow And although his wife and his children were in that apartment house awaiting his return they were never told that he been arrested They were never told that he had been taken off to prison And so Mrs Ginzburg on that night hurried into the streets going from police station to police station to ask the whereabouts of her husband She suspected that he had been arrested but she was told everywhere that they had no knowledge of his whereabouts It was not until the next morning that she was told by the KGB that he had been detained Since that time Aleksandr Ginzburg has been in Kaluga Prison He has had communication with no one outside its walls He has had communication with no member of his family because his family has been deprived of the right to see him or visit him He had had communication with no lawyer because no lawyer has seen him He has been deprived of the right to have counsel nor have any charges been preferred against him You do not have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce why Aleksandr Ginzburg was arrested He was arrested because he embraced the cause of human freedom because he believed in the right of free expression because he believed in political expression because he believed in the right of peaceable assembly and because he was presumptuous enough to believe that the Soviet regime meant it when they signed the Helsinki accords on August 1 1975 That is why Aleksandr Ginzburg was arrested v 6 - ' He ·1 ad become w ll k no vii in t - vVest because in 1967 when s·iny avsky arid DanieLwere tried as-the· earliest political dissidents the So viet Unjon he covered that trial and he vrote about that trial in his now famous ''' Vliite Book That book was circulated in the Vest after·he ·had submitted it to the Supreme Soviet authbrity He was charged with a violation of the· infamous article 70 of the Sqviet Criminal Code because he preparecl the White Book That article 70 makes it a crime to slander the Soviet regiirie Slander of course we would interpret in English a s criticize-to criticiz·e a regime because it does not accord-any oft he -basic rights of human 'freedom · Aleksandr Ginzl n rg_criticize_d_the Soviet regime they _ said when he published the White Book All observers agl' ee that the White Book was a fair and accurate and objective report of the Sinyavsky-DanieI trial · · ' · ·' · '· • He be ame well known in the Soviet Union He was sentenced to 5 e-ars 111 prison and_ 5 years in exile for that effort Small wonder members of this Commission that he cri d out for a lawyer from the vYest after the experience 4e had in that trial He had a lawyer named Boris Zolotukhin who did the unprecedented arrogant and presumpti 1011s thing o f asking the Soviet tribunal to acquit his client instead of bepaving like a mendicant nd suppliantly asking for mercy For those efforts Boris Zolotukhin was suspended from the Soviet Bar and expelled from the Co1hmuriist Party · · · When Aleksandr Ginzburg was sentenced at that time he said·this nd I_ want _to read you the quot He said in I know you will convict me because no one indicted under article 70 has ever been acquitted That is one thing about a trial under article 70-the trial la vyer does not have any anxieties about the outcome because they are always foregoneconclnsions We know the·result The only question is the sentence He went on to say l fy conscience is clear as I go to serve my sentence You can send me to prison or to a labor camp but I am convinced that no honest person will condemn me Thereafter A·leksandr Ginzburg became the principal administrator in -the Soviet Union o f the Russian Social Fund The Russian Social Fund members o f the Commission is a fund made up o f the royalties from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's book The Gulag Archipelago All of the royalties since he left the Soviet Union have been diverted to help the families of the dissident prisoners within the Soviet Union and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has administered that fund and has distributed some $350 000 Everything was done to discourage that fund First it was taxed at 35 percent and last year the tax was raised to 65 percent so that only one-third· of those funds could reach the families o f the dissident prisoners But more recently Aleksandr Ginzburg became a member of the Helsinki Watch Group to Promote the Observance of the Helsinki Accords Now we know what the fate of the members of that watch group has been from looking at the press during the past 4 months Two days after Gin b1 1-rg was a rr sted Mykola Rudenko and Oleksiy Tykhy of the Ukra1man branch o f the Helsinki Watch Group were· arrested One week later Doctor Yuri Orlov the founder and leader o f the group was arrested And theri of course Anatoly Shcharansky1 _ 7 who v·e learned this week will be tried for treason in the Soviet Union •for speaking out £or the cause of freed m for speaking ou _for the cause of Jewish emi Yration for embracmg the cause of political ex0 pression-he will be tried for treason ·we are told within the next nionth It is interesting to note that although l fr Shchar nsky was arrested only 2 months ago they have prepared the case agamst Mr Shclia ·ansky and are preparing to move on the treason count Aleksandr Gmzburg still languishes in jail I tell you that tells the story because they know that he is in such fragile health that he may die and they hope to break him and get a confession • Most recently two members of the newly formed Georgian branchZviad Gamsakhurdia and Merab Kostava-were arrested as members of the watch group · My involvement in this matter came about this way members of the -Commission After a call and a letter I visited Mr Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in Cavendish Vermont and I spent 1 day with him And I must confess to you that I became a convert to a belief that I think all of you have I am a dedicated convert to it now I know now the Soviets understand and respect strength and they have contempt for vacillation and ambiguity I believe that as long as we keep the searchlight of world opinion on their treatment of the dissidents the cause of freedom will benefit to the maximum inside the Soviet Union After talking to Mr Solzhenitsyn I came back to Washington and I had a call from Mr Ginzburg's wife who was able to make a phone call-one phone call to nie away from her home and we talked for 10 minutes The first 8 minutes was clear She begged me to come and· counsel with her-she begged me to come and help her to the maximum of my ability within my limitations and to confer with her husband in Kaluga Prison and I agreed of course to do that I suppose-and this is pure speculation and not fact-that after the call had been monitored for about 7 minutes the significance of the call was realized because it was forthwith jammed and suddenly a Soviet operator came on and said your 10 minutes is up That was the· last time that_ I have had communication through orthodox channels from Mrs Gmzburg It was the last telephone call that was made although she has tried to call me She is now under surveillance and can make no further calls I applied for a visa I talked to·the Soviet Ambassador the Honorable Anatoly Dobrynin I asked for the right to see him He would n t see me but he talked to me on the telephone and he told nm that my- request was unprecedented presumptuous and arrogant but that I should reduce it to writing and it would be submitted to Moscow I did do that I complied I wrote a long formal request for a visa and I waited in respectful silence for an answer I believed that because the Soviets had embraced the spirit and lette1 of freedom in the Helsinki accords that I would get it But I believed my application would be granted for another reason Back in 1960 when Igor Y Melekh a Soviet attache of the United Nations mission of the Soviet was arrested for espionage the then Soviet Ambassador aske_d me to defend him That was not a popular cause which I was seekrng to embrace but popular misunderstanding is the 8 license fee that a trial lawyer often must pay to ply his trade The defense of the unorthodox and the unpopular and the degraded for trial lawyers is a post of honor I had been all over the United States talking to aw students and telling them this and so the time had come for me to perform and I believed that the canons of ethics and the sixth amendment to the Constitution required me to perform and I did so vigorously I must tell this Commission that every principle of the American Bill of Rights was accorded to Igor Melekh every procedural safeguard guaranteed by the criminal procedures of the United States was accorded to Igor Melekh and if I had wanted a Soviet lawyer to sit at my side to see that the proceedings were fair there was no doubt that I could have had a Soviet lawyer there-the U S Government would have welcomed him-to see the fairness of the treatment which Igor Melekh received So successful was that defense that they came back-they came back again in 1968 with the case of Igor Ivanov-another one of their citizens charged with espionage And once again I did not think this was the way to win friends or influence people across the Nation to stand in the court beside a Soviet citizen charged with espionage but once again I believed it was my obligation as a lawyer to do that within the limits of integrity and decency and fairness-and I did it Once ag-ain I did it vigorously and once again all of the safeguards were given to Igor Ivanov and also once again after a vigorous defense we had a success · I belong to an old-fashioned school-I believe one good turn deserves another and so I was naive enough to think that when I called Mr Dobrynin that he would say Of course you can go visit Mrs Ginz burg Of course you can go counsel with her Of course you can go help her select counsel But I was peremptorily denied that right I asked for reconsideration and I thought naively that perhaps when I made the case again they would understand But this week once again J was peremptorily denied the right to travel to the Soviet Union I want to say to this Commission that I have practiced law for 32 years I have been in a lot of cases that the members of the press have been interested in I have never held a press conference in my life All of the people who have covered trials that I have been in will tell you that I am the most difficult person in the world to talk to during a trial because I believe that a case should be tried in the courtroom and not on the courthouse steps I believe that even-handed justice and fairness are realized by offering evidence before an impartial judge and an impartial jury or an impartial tribunal-not by talking bout the case to the media-print or television But I have been deprived of the right to speak on behalf of Aleks·andr Ginzburg I have been deJ dved of the right to present his case or to assist in presenting his case m a courtroom to be of assistance to his lawyer I have been deprived of the right to confront his accusers I have been deprived of the right even to see whether or not my client receives a fair trial So I now know that the only place that I can help Aleksandr Ginzburg and that brave band of men and women who have em- 9 braced the cause of freedom in an atmosphere of total repression at great cost to their freedom and their lives-the only courtroom that I have is the courtroom of world opinion I believe that it behooves me and all other members of my profession to speak out on this becausethe cause of liberty and freedom is an indivisible cause It is like the central nervous system of the human body-you cut it in one place and you damage the whole-and maybe you kill the whole It is not important whet er Ed Williams goes to Moscow but it is· important that some American lawyer be allowed to go Somebody ought to be able to go over there and view these proceedings and see if they are conducted with minimum fairness or whether they are just a charade I will tell you that the volunteers to do this are many So I hope-I hope that the Soviet Ambassador will reconsider If he wilJ not let me go-it is not important that I go-it is important that someone goes and sees and witnesses and reports to the world whether· Anatoly Shcharansky has a fair trial or whether Aleksandr Ginzburg· has a fair trial or whether Alekandr Ginzburg will be held without charges without communication and without a lawyer for another4 months until perhaps his health is so destroyed that the case will have mooted out On August 1 1975 along with 34 other participating States the Soviet Union signed the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe Article VII of that act pledges that The participating States will respect human rights and fundamental freedoms Including the freedom of thought conscience religion or belief for all without distinction as to race sex language or religion They will promote and encourage the effective exercise of civil political economic social cultural and other rights and freedoms all of which derive from the inherent dignity of the human person and are essential for his free and full development They will act in conformity with the purposes and ·principles of the Charter of the United Nations and with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights On August 1 1975 Secretary General Leonid Brezhnev solemnly signed his name to that pact and when they arrested Aleksandr Ginzburg 4 months ago they broke it On August 1 1975 they said that they embraced the idea of free movement of men and ideas across their borders When they denied me the right to go into their country they broke that commitment On August 1 1975 they reaffirmed the Declaration of Universal Rights which said No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest Article 9 Everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal Article 10 Everyone charged Vith a penal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty Article 11 Not to be held mcommunicado in a prison 200 miles from his family Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression Article 19 That is what they said When they said that did they mean it They violated that pledge they breached it when they arrested Aleksandr Ginzburg They have a constitution members of this Commission I think the greatest political document written in the annals of human expression is the American Bill of Rights The only document that I have ever sren that rivals it in 'its libertarian scope is the Soviet Constitution You must read the Soviet Constitution on free expression on fair trial on impartial tribunal on the rights of the accused-it is a thrilling 10 docunient designed to stir the soul of the lawyer who loves liberty B_ut when they arr Sted Aleksandr Ginzburg 4 months ago- when they denied the visa application they turned their backs on the Helsinki accords They turned their backs on the United Nations' Charter They turned their backs on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights They turned their backs on their own Constitution The thing-that concerns me most deeply about this case is not just the freedom of Aleksandr Ginzburg and Anatoly Shcharansky and Yuri Orlov and all of those brave men and women who-have stood in an atmosphere of repression and spoken out for the essential dignity of human beings but the thing· that concerns me most deeply is that Aleksandr Ginzburg was a desperately ill man when he was taken to Kaluga Prison on February 3 He had been hospitalized for pneumonia and they discovered that he was tubercular and he was released with a high fever vVhen he was whisked off to Kaluga Prison he had a high fever and he was i1 fragile he lth · I had the experience of a lorig long session with Vladimir Bukovsky who told me something about Soviet prisons and about Kaluga Prison in paiticular So I have grave fears as to whether Aleksandr Ginzburg can withstand the rigors of incarceration at Kaluga Prison His wife has not been able to bring him the normal rations of food that are given to the ordinary prisoners She has been frustrated and thwarted in this endeavor by the authorities • I am gravely concerned over whether Aleksandr Ginzburg can withstand this much longer · · · But I do know one t 1ink I i ead yesterday in the Washington Post that one of the pundits wrote The fr edom mo vement 111 the Soviet Union is dead The political dissidents are finished' '·' Well I do not believe that I would like to read to you what Aleksandr Ginzb1i rg said shortly before he was arrested It is easy to foresee that new obstacles will arise along the way Tliis always happens in our country when the pubiic hears not the glorification of the authorities but bitter testimony as to the results qf their po ' er But I share Solzhenitsyn's conviction that the right of might must inevitab_ly yield to the J ight of right And of Tooclness · · · b • As l mg as the Andre ' Sakharovs the Aleksandr Ginzburgs the Yuri ' rlov¾ the Aleksandr Solzheiiit'syns live the fires of freedom will burn in th_e Soviet Union A s·fong as'325 brave Soviet citizens will put their na_m s on a petittoll' and send it to fl sayin$ ' Right on-right on I believe the fires of freedom shall burn m the ov1et U mon · As for· myself and _the members of my law firm I will tell you that we will never count the cqst arid we will never seek respite until' we h1_i ve accomplish d some hing foi th9 b ' av ·p op e_in the cans of human freedom · • · · Thank you Mr Chairman 1 fi F ASCELL Thank you very much Mr Williams Not only some wrJters but others in and out of governments have felt that any kirid'of e-ffort in the world court of puolic opinion is counterprodi1ctive that it 1 ould not only be destructive of civil rights movements ·in the Soviet Union bnt that it would have a spill over effect with respect'to all other matters that the signatory governments to the Helsinki accords mi 'ht be interested 'in What is your view that b on 11 Mr WILLIAMS I believe as I said earlier Mr Chairman _that th Soviet Union respects strength and resolution of purpose They respect -determination They respect vigor and they have total contempt for vacillation and ambiguity and qualification aJ d withdraw I think that as long as we keep the searchlight of pubhc opm19n on their treatment of the dissidents that we will render maximum benefit to the cause of freedom inside the Soviet Union and maximum benefi to the cause of freedom inside the Soviet Union by my lights is maximum benefit to the cause of world peace · - Mr FASCELL So then you are in accord with the efforts of this ad ministration to keep that spotlight on the cause of human rights Mr Vn LIAMS I am I was thrilled this morning to -read that once again the spokesman for the President and the- spokesman for the Sfate Department have spoken out in a fo1thright unambiguous manner with respect to the case of Anatoly Shcharansky and with respect to the Helsinki ·watch Committee inside the Soviet Union I believe that that resolution and unwavering demonstration of purpose is the maximum benefit that we can confer upon these brave people Mr FAsCELL The Soviet Union has expressed'in a variety of waysand some other people have also-that they do not want the Belgrade Conference to be a shouting match o rhetoric recrimination and fin gerpointing It occurs to me that the dynamics that bring that about or at least raise the level of the issue originate in the very actions of the Soviet Union Mr vVrLLIAMS I think so too 1 1 r Chairman _ I think that when we sign a treaty or an accord with a foreign power we have the right to believe that they are going to live by it If we signed a disarmament treaty then we would monitor this disarmament factor of the treaty Ve we signed a human rights accord and I think we ought to monitor the human rights aspect section VII of the Helsinki accords _ · I do not know what we as a nation have been doing about monitoring it but thank goodness there is a band of freedom lovers inside Moscow and inside the Soviet Union who take the Soviet regime's commit- ment seriously and are watching everything they do about it I thin k the way that we can demonstrate the resolution of purpose that I think is needed is to make sure that on June 15 the first order of business is to put compliance with article VII on that agendai for Belgrade I hope and expect the representative of the American Government will do just that so that our performance is consonant with our commitment -Mr F ASCELL It is certainly on the agenda Mr Williams It might not be in specific terms but the ageJ da has been set of course because it is the Helsinki accords which is be reviewed That means all of the Baskets I do not see any way around that Mr vVrLLIAl IS I hope it is not so far down in the Baskrt Mr Chairman that you cannot see it and that you have to feel way down 1n order to find it because I think-it ought to be right up there on the top of the Basket It appears to me that the rest of the Helsinki accords' have been pretty carefully complied with by the signatories from the West Mr FASCELL Mrs Fenwick · Mrs FENWICK Thank you l fr Chairman I think we were all very mnch moved by vour statement Certai'nly I was Sometimes we woncler in defending principles whether we forget the individuals' to hom those·princi ples apply but I think y9 u have 'made it so cl ar that to 12 in the long run it is only principles that defend ·people and that unless we stand for those principles there is no hope for the helpless who are condemned to su ffer these outrages Certainly at Belgrade-perhaps not in the a genda conference which will be more technical but in the October conference-what we know and what this Commission has learned must be made useful We have been monitoring compliance since we were established in June 1976 The legislation was introduced in September 1975 and this Commission has been working under our able chairman ever since the law was signed We hope that these efforts will be useful We intend that they shall be But the problem is that we have no sanction to compel compliance What sanction-what power have we Yesterday speaking on the floor of the House about Anatoly Shcharansky I asked what can Congress do i What sanctions have we We can say that they are not living up to the accords and we know that is true but how to make that effective The same thing is true frankly about the military provisions in Basket I What is the alternative-war We can of course stop interchanges and detente but detente at least allows us to have an interchange Detente means that some of the Voice of America will get through If the jurists do as I hope •they will and take up the cudgels as you have suggested they too can be a very powerful voice International associations of scientists and jurists and psychiatrists and writers-all of these organizations independently of what we do should be involved in this What suggestions have you Mr Williams i Mr V ILLIAMS I think Mrs Fenwick that we can never underestimate-and maybe we are underestimating-the importance of world opinion to the Soviets I think it is of tremendous importance to them not to have world opinion turned against them If we have a continuation of the repressiveness that has been manifested to the Helsinki Watch Group I believe that world opinion can be marshaled against them so that they will feel a serious detriment flowing from it They did sign an agreement They had signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights They are going to have a new Constitution I think we should all look at that Constitution with great interest Obviously it cannot be more repressive in tone It must be more libertarian If it is more libertarian it will be a marvelous document to read because we will then take that new Constitution which will- be promulgated very soon and just compare it with the treatment of Shcharansky and Ginzburg and Orlov and see whether we can find · any points of incidence Mrs FENWICK But you know Mr Williams this is where the frustration comes Clive Barnes testified before this Commission He was concerned with a famous dancer who had defected and had tried to get his wife out Mr Barnes said You_ ca rally public opinion n behalf of the 'well known But I am thmkmg of a garage mechamc and his desperate wife who ca me before us-not important people not big names of a·ny kind These are the people that break your heart How do· we get the mechanic out _or anoth r woman in Isra l with a child born handicapped mentally and physically and a husband who cannot get ou'U Unknown people This is where the effort has to be 13 as you say the appeal to principle Otherwise they are lost-they have no notoriety that will attract famous and important people to come to their defense Mr 'hLLIAMS Mrs Fenwick Mr Solzhenitsyn says that for every one of the brave people who have spoken out in the cause of freedom or who have demonstrated in the cause of freedom on the streets of Moscow there are 100 000 who are thinking these thoughts and who arc longing to join but who have not mustered the courage It ma y take one electric flash-it may take one incident to spread that cause of freedom through Moscow Mr Simon said earlier when he spoke that everytime that we give encouragement to the people who are speaking out we are pouring kerosene on the flames of liberty inside the Soviet Union I believe we are The worst thing that I believe we could do would be to let those people who have embraced the cause of human freedom inside the most repressive society in the history of the world believe that they are alone and forgotten and that no one cares and that no one is willing to speak out for them Mrs FENW ICK That is right Mr vVILLIAllIS That is the worst thing we can do and that is why I think that the work of this Commission is so important and if you can rally the kind of support that I believe is necessary to demonstrate to them that they are not alone-tha t they are not forgottenthat people all over the world ca re about them respect them admfre revere and love them this Commission will have done the greatest service that anybody can do for the Congress of the United States Mrs FENWICK Thank you Mr Williams Mr F ASCELL Congressman Simon Mr SIMON Thank you Mr Chairman First of all I rarely feel like applauding when a witness finishes Mrs FENWICK I do too Mr SIMON I do not like cheering but I felt like cheering I concur in what you had to say and I think what you have just said in response to Mrs Fenwick is extremely important If nothing else we owe these people the right to let them feel someone out there cares and is concerned If we do nothing more than that we have done something constructive But I think we can do more than that if we just keep that spotlight on I have inst one question I am curious ·about when you talked to Ambassador Dobryni11 Was he the one who contacted yon on either one of the previous occasions to ask you to serve as counsel Mr WILLIAMS No No he was not Mr SIMON Was he aware of your involvement 1 -Mr W'ILLIAMS I certainly made him aware of that Mr SIMON All right Mr W1LLIA-r rs I made him aware of that both orally and in writing at some length just in case he had forgotten If he had forgotten it would be because of retrograde amnesia Laughter Mr SIMON I have no further questions I commend you on what you are doing I think this country and the world are fortunate for your services 9'2-302-77-2 14 Mr FASCELL -Mr Buchanan Mr BucHANAN Thank you Mr Chairman Mr Williams I am constrained to say that it is apparent to me that George Allen is not the only reason the Redskins tend to be winners J fr WILLIAMS Thank you Mr BucHANAN As one American-as one member of the Commission _i am confident as to what the court of world opinion wili'rule on this matter I just want to thank you for your most effective testimony and also for your continued effort on beha lf of the cause of justice and human freedom It is my profound hope that the Soviet Union will reconsider its decision on your most reasonable request and will at least in this small wav begin to honor its own Constitution Thank you very much · · i Mr FASCELL Mr Bingham Mr BINGHAM Thank you Mr Chairman - am sorry that I was a little late getting here and I missed a good part of your testimony J fr Williams but I heard enough to certainly want to join the others in a pplauding your testimony and your efforts ·· I do have a specific question in looking over your prepared statement - What happened iIJ the initial case when Mr Ginzburg was sentenced to 5 years-you do not mention whether he served the 5 years ' Mr vVILLIAMS He served the 5 _years Mr Bingham and he was serving his 5 years in exile He served 5 years in prison and he has served a total of 7 years in prison during his life-5 of them under that article 70 charge when he reported the Sinyavsky-Daniel trial It was regarded as a crime to repor t the procedures that were followed in t·rying Sinyavsky and Daniel and before you got here Mr Bingham I told the Commission that 1he had a very unusual lawyer in the Soviet Union The lawyer was courageous enough to ask for his acquittal which was an up precedented th_ing · Mr RINGHAM I see that J fr WILLIAMS That is not supposed to happen You are sup-posed to ask for mercy in those courts but he was treated rather shoddily for having ·asked for his client's acquittal Ginzburg was sentenced He was tried with another defendant and he stood before the court at the time of the sentence and he asked the court to do one thing He said Do not sentence m e to a lighter sentence than my codefern lant I want e verything he gets There wa$ some suggestion that be c ause of his fragile health he might •get som thing less So he got I years and ib e served the 5 years and he was doin g I y ars in exile - -he wa s not all owed in Moscow ex1ept occ pn ally 'for visits c uring the_ period of exile ' He is now not in Moscow UR you 'know Mr Bingham He _is up-in · JCalnga Prison whic4 is al x ut 15Q miles out of Mosrow · · Mr BrnoHA11i Do you know w iether this article 70-charge which has been made against hin i ' i i tlie saip e kind of char ge that has been gui e fr quent i r i the 1 t - s q iRtiwr11jshed from the ehaq e qf treason which hn 9 e 1 flad ag i Jist_'_J _ r Shcharansky _ and- whicp I under stand to be virtually unique'since the Stalin days ·' 15 Mr VILLIAMS He has not been charged with anything yet He w·as charged for doing the White Book on the Sinyavsky-Daniel_trial with an article 70 offense As of now we cannot find out what he 1s charged with and I suggested to the Commission wholly apart from my prepared statement that if you want to look for a charge you have to assume that he has been charged for embracing the cause _of freedom inside the Soviet Union and for being part of the Helsmln Watch •Group _ · Mr BINGHAJIL vVere you given any reason for a denial of your visa Mr vVILLIAMS No I was given no reason Mr BrnoHAJIL I certainly thank you for your efforts vVe all do I think that this Commissioi1 is grateful to you for highlighting this matter vVe are going to try as we proceed in matters such as this to keep such matters before the court of world opinion Mr WILLIAMS Thank you Mr F ASCELL Mr Williams Vladimir Bukovsky as I recall was lso _charged and tried and sentenc d u der a ticl 70_ and as I r all rn lns case he was once sent to a psycluatnc mstitubon for political dissent and then because he had an interview with CBS they sent him ·to jail vVhen we received him here and heard his testimony it struck me as unusual that here under Soviet law a man was branded as an insane criminal and yet we were fortunate to provide him a forum to speak out without going to jail But this raises the issue as do all of these cases as I see it of the Soviet argument that under the Hel sinki accords all of this is really interfering in their internal affairs and is nobody's business From a legal standpoint how do you view that argument Mr ·WILLIAMS I think that they made it our business when they induced us by the considerations that were given to sign the Helsinki accords They exacted a very heavy quid pro quo for embracing the principles of freedom and for embracing the freedom of motion for ideas and men across their borders when they signed the Helsinki accords I think that they made it our business V-e have a right to expect that signatories to accords will comply with what they promise vVe have a right to monitor that vVe have the right to look at that and if they do not do it then we should learn a very very important lesson about dealing with them in the future Up to now it seems we have not learned that lesson · Mr F ASCELL They take the further position of course that the accords are not a treaty of any kind and not binding on anybody Mr vVILLIAMS Then I suppose the same would apply to the respect for the integrity of their borders · · Mr F ASCELL Which they put great stock in under these same accords · Mr WILLIAMS The same accords Mr F ASCELL It seems to me a rather reasonable position to takeyou cannot have it both ways under the same agreement ··Mr WILLIAMS Mrs Fenwick said earlier in a very I thmwht eloquent statement the difference between their government a d their form of governmen and ours I ave always thought that the difference 1s most dramatically symbolized in the fact that they keep under 16 glass at the Kremlin for everyone to see the corpse 0£ L nin demonstratincr that theirs is really a government 0£ inen But i£ you walk up the treet here at the National Archives you will see what we have under crlass We have the American Bill of Rights showing that ours is a go ernment of laws and pri ciples and r les I think that is he difference between the two societies and that 1s what we are talkmg about here this morning Mr FAsCELL Mr Williams you say you have a petition here ancl we would be glad to receive it for our files Mr WILLIAMS I have a number of communications that I think might be interesting £or your files Mr Chairman and I will makr them available to your staff if I may Mr F ASCELL Without objection we would be very happy to receive those for the files or the record Materials and communications submitted for the record are printed at the conclusion of Mr Williams' testimony Mr ·WILLIAMS If I may just take 1 final minute-I think I have trespassed on your time too long-but for those people who are writing and saying that the cause of the political dissidents is dead I would like to submit to this Commission the following communications that I have received from people inside the Soviet Union about the case 0£ the political dissidents An appeal by a Moscow physicist Yuri Mnyukh a member of the Helsinki Group who was not afraid to write a letter from a group of political prisoners from the labor camps in l fordovia an appeal from an astronomer Kronid Lyubarsky recently freed from a labor camp an appeal to world opinion and to the governments who signed the Helsinki agreements in defense of Aleksandr Ginzburg signed by the members 0£ the Helsinki Monitoring Group including Mrs Sakharov an appeal by Doctor Sakharov and Igor Shafarevich an appeal signed by 325 people inside the Soviet Union who were courageous enough to put their names on a document embracing the causes of Yuri Orlov and Aleksandr Ginzburg an appeal by the Christian Committee for the defense of and rights of religious people an appeal by the Union of Evangelical Christians an appeal by General Grigorenko and his wife requesting the authorities to release Aleksandr Ginzburg signed by Mrs Sakharov asking that he be kept by them provisionally until trial because of his bad health A number of other petitions and letters that have com_e to me-I say that anyone who says that the cause 0£ freedom is dead in the Soviet Union and that the fires of political dissent are out has gravely miscalculated the mood of the political dissidents in the Helsinki vVatch Group Mr F ASCELL Thank you very much Mr vVilliams I want to thank you for your appearance here today and your testimony Mr BINGHAM May I ask a question ' · Mr F ASCELL Mr Bingham · Mr BINGHAM I would just like to ask one more question As we go to Belgrade would you not agree that it would be very important that we should make· efforts on our side tci see that as far as possible our hands are clean For example the £act that we still do not permitdo not issue visas to those with Communist connections or at least that is the provision in our law We ought to move to repeal those 17 laws to the extent that we violate the Helsinki act-they may not be comparable to what the Soviets are guilty of but should we not at least try to see that our hands are clean Mr WILLIAMS My experience in the last couple of months Mr Bingham is that that policy at the State Department in that respect has been greatly relaxed I do not know enough about the statutory predicate for the regulations and the policy being implemented by the Department but my experience is that that policy has been greatly relaxed in the last 60 days Mr BINGHAM Thank you There was the well-publicized case of the labor group which was denied entry a couple of months ago It is true that waivers are easy to obtain but there are still cases-- Mrs FENWICK I would hesitate to debate this distinguished attorney but I think what is important about our law is not only that it provides a method which is absolutely essential-but its purpose is the protection of individual rights That is what is important Mr WILLIAMS Yes Mr FASCELL Mr Williams thaµk you very much You have made a very substantial contribution to our record of this Commission but also to the record of the whole world on this very important matter and we appreciate very much your coming here Mr WILLIAMS Thank you very much Mr Chairman and thank you members of the Commission Materials submitted by Mr Williams follow A COLLECTION OF MATERIALS AND COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE USSR PROTESTING THE ARRESTS OF ALEKSANDR GINZBURG AND YURI ORLOV BULLETIN In February 1977 in Moscow two prominent representatives of our country's independent public opinion were arrested Aleksandr Ginzburg main representative of the Russian Social Fund to help political prisoners and their families member of the Moscow Helsinki Agreement Monitoring Group and Yuri Orlov president of the Helsinki Monitoring Group in Moscow well-known physicist corresponding member of the Armenian Academy of Science The high re pute and the good deeds of these two men are now known not only in the U S S R but in the entire world International public opinion and government circles of several countries which signed the Helsinki agreement understandably felt that these arrests were a flagrant violation of that agreement s provisions and an attempt to suffocate on the eve of the Belgrade Conference all free voices speaking out in defense of human rights in our conn try Our authorities try to counteract such a reaction from world public opinionmost unpleasant from their point of view-by asserting that the arrests of human right defenders are an internal affair One of the authors of the documents in this bulletin relevantly replies that it is not our internal affair meaning the country's it is your internal affair meaning the regime's which makes the country blush The arrest of an innocent person cannot be anybody's internal affair The outcome of the cases of A Ginzburg and Yu Orlov will be of fundamental significance not only for our country Harsh and merciless reprisal against these two individuals may well be a sign of deterioration of the internal situation that will inevitably reflect on international relations Today numerous people are following the fates of Aleksandr Ginzburg and Yuri Orlov while Soviet propaganda endeavors to besmirch their names Truthful and exact information on all the circumstances connected with their cases is particularly important at this time The pur pose of submitting this bulletin to your attention is precisely to supply you with such information It will be published again as more documentary materials are gathered 18 FREEDOM FOR ALEKSAND1j GrNZBURG Aleksandr Ginzbu g has been ·ari-ested · ' This man who in the last few years has given his life to lofty and self-sacfl-ficing civic' service by helping political prisoners and their fainiliies 'bas l Jeen deprived of freedom This 11e vs pained· the hearts not only of those who lme'Y · Ginzburg well but also of those hundreds of people whom he supporte_q in diffi-·· cult moments through his kind and generous endeavors as representattv e of the· Solzhenitsyn Fund · · ' l'his is the third arrest in the life of Aleksandr Ginzburg who not long ago· turned forty In 1960 he vas· arrested for publishing the typewritten• poetry rqagazine - Syntax The sentence-2 years in prison camps In 1967 he was arrested for com piling the widely-known White Book a collection of materials on the trial of ' Sinyavsky· and Daniel The sentence-5 years in prison camps And no v· again new arrest And possibly another term · The years Ginzburg has spent in prisons and camps have broken his health_ A whole range of stomach ailments is an indelible reminder of those years Not long before his arrest be had ·been discharged from a ·hospital with medicar certificate stating that he had uncured pneumonia and a constant temperature under instructions to go to a tuberculosis clinic for cure The KGB staff who took him to Kaluga Prison knew about this · '· In the course of several years the civic activity ·of Aleksandr Ginzburg was accompanied by slander from Soviet i formation agencies The latest publication in particular the shamelessly false TASS announcement of February 4 leav es no• doubt that a frame-up of Ginzburg is being devised Petrov-Agatov has already'· spread his dirty evidence for what Judas-like payment over the p_ages of the· Literary Gazette The trial if it takes place will be the revenge the authorities·· take on a brave man for his charity and goodness And the sentence if it is·· pronounced will amount to the murder of the father of two small sons We demand the immediate release of Aleksandr Ginzburg We appeal to the leaders of all countries who signed the Helsinki Agreements to recognize clearly that the campaign against Aleksandr Ginzburg member of the Group to Promote the Observance of the Helsinki Agreements signifies the creation of a political and social climate in our country of a kind hound to lead to serious international repercussions We appeal to you to do everything within your power to put ·a stop to this campaign We appeal to all humanitarian legar and religious association to come forth in the defense of Aleksandr Ginzburg We· appeal to world-wicle public opinion to support us to the full February 4 1977 Signed 1 Pavel Abramovich engineer 2 Mark Azbel Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences 3 Lyudmila Alekseeva philologist 4 Mikhail Alekseev math-• ematician 5 Vladimir Albrecht mathematician 6 Boris Altshuller physicist 7 Iosif Andryukhin 8 Elena Armand 9 Sh Arutyunyan Armenia 10 Eduarcl Arutyunyan Armenia 11 Aleksandr Babenyshev mathematician 12 Sarra Babenysheva literary critic 13 Dzhemma Babich Leningrad physician 14 Tatyana Baeva 15 Aleksandr Barl mnov physicist 16 B Batis Lithuania 17 Vyacheslav Bakhmin mathematician 18 Beglar Bezhuashvili Tbilisi art' critic 19 Boris Beilin physicist 20 G Blinas Lithuania 21 Larisa Bogoraz philologist 22 Aleksandr Bolonkin Buryat A S S R Candidate of Teclrnological Sciences political exile 23 I Volunchavichyus Lithuania 24 Elena Bonner physician 25 Ruf Bonner pensioner 2G Vadim Borisov historian 27 Leonid Borodin historian 28 Viktor Brai-· lovsky Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences 29 Irina Bmilovskaya 30 Nadezhda Vasilievna Bukharina pensioner 31 Irina Valitova Orlov art critic 32 S Valyukenas Lithuania 3 '3 Varsonofy Khaibulin archdeaco 1 34 L s Varshavskaya 35 Marat Veksler psychiatrist poet 36 Kseniya Velikanov 1 biologist 37 'l'atyana Velikanova mathematician 38 Larisa Vilenskaya 39 N1kolai Vilyams mathematician 40 Elizaveta Vins Kiev Baptist 42 Natalya Vins Kiev Baptist 43 Pyotr Vins Kiev electrician Baptist 44 Vladimir Voinovich writer 45 Vladimir Gaenko chemist Leningrad 46 Zviacl Gamsakhurdia Candidate of Philological Sciences Tbilisi 47 K Garutskas Lithuania 48 Yuri Gastev mathematician 49 Valis Gayauskas Lithuania 50 Aleksandr Gvinter 51 Maria Gel Lvov 52 Sergei Genkin mathematician 53 Vladmir Gershuni writer 54 Irina Gildengorn 55 Grigori Goldshtein engineer ITbilisi 56 Isai a· a 19 Goldshtein engineer Tbilisi 57 -Yuri Golfund Doctor of Physical and l Iathemntical sdiences 58 Aleksandr Golyashev · engineer 5 J Zinaida Grigorenko pensioner GO Pyotr Grigorenko general 61 Yuri Grimm 02 Elena Grin translator 63 Teimuraz Dzhanildze teacher Tbilisi _ 64 Zari1fn Dzyboeva 65 S Dobrovolskis Lithuania 66 Elena Dubyanskaya 67 Venedikt Erofeev writer 68 Yuri Zharkikh artist 6 J A Zhilinskas Lithuania 70 Vladimir Zhiltsov philologist Gorky 71 Father Sergei Zheludkov priest Pskov 72 I Zdellskis Lithuania 73 Lidiya Zaclnovska-ya proofreader 74 Asnfya Zdanovskaya watchman 75 Tatyana Zaochnaya 76 Yulia Zaks chemist 77 Boris Zaks member of the Union of Journalists_ 78 Leonid Ziman teacher 79 Licliya Aleksandro' 'na Ivanova 80 Nikolai Ivanm· art critic Vladimir Province 81 K Iokubonis Lithuania 82 Veniamin Iofe chemical engineer Leningrad 83 Olga Iofe 84 Valeriya Isakova Davydova geologist Leningrad 85 Sofya Vasilievna Kallistratova lawyer 86 Ivan Kandyba lawyer Lvov 87 Viktor Kapitanchuk chemist 88 Irina Kaplun proofreader 89 Meri Kaplan teacher 90 Lyudmila Kardasevich office worker 91 Iosif Kiblitsky artist 92 Yuri Kiselev artist · 93 Lymlmila Klimanova chemist Leningrad 94 Evgeni Kokorin 95 Nina Komarova chemist pharmacist Vladimir Province 96 Vladimir Kornilov member of the Union of Writers 97 Aleksandr Korchak Doctor of Science ph ·sicist 98 Lev Kopelev literary· critic 99 l ierab Kostava art critic Tbilisi 100 Elena Kosterina biologist 101 Valentina Kropivnitskaya artist 102 Aleksandr Lavut mathematician 103 Bronisl-av Lainer 104 Malva Landa geologist 105 Vera Lashkova 106 L Laurinskas Lithuania 107 Ilya Levin philologist Leningrad 108 Rakhil Levitanaite 109 Veniamin Levich C01Tesponding Member of the Academy of Sciences physicist 110 'l'atyana Levich 111 Dimitri Leontev 112 Evgeni Liberman 113 V F Livchak physician 114 Nina Lisovskaya biologist ·115 S Lukauskaite Lithuania 116 Levko Lukyanenko lawyer Chernigov 117 Kronid Lyubarsky astrophysicist Candidate of Science Tarusa 118 Valentina Mashkova Osipova 119 Marinovich Kiev 120 Anatoli Marchenko writer worker Chunn 112 Matusevich Kiev 122 Igor Melchuk linguist Doctor of Science 123 Boris Mikhailov art critic 124 Yuri l Inyukh Candidate of Science 125 Raisa Moroz Ivano-Frankovsk 126 Mark Morozov 127 Sergei l foshkov chemist Minsk 128 Lyubov Murzhenko 129 Victor Nekipelov chemist-pharmacist Vladimir Provi1ice 130 Evgeni Nikolaev biologist 131 Tatyana Osipova 132 L E Ostrovskayn artist 133 Vladlen Pa vlenkov teacher of history Gorky 134 Svetlana Pa vlenkova teacher Gorky 135 Ninel Panfilova physicist 136 Ya Petkyavichene Lithuania 137 Vyacheslav Petrov worker exile Tomsky Province 138 Vladimir Sirotinin chemical engineer Krasnoyarsk 139 Gali PetrovaZhuravleva pensioner 140 A Petrusyavichus Lithuania 141 Leonid' Efimovich Pinsky writer 142 Aleksandr Podrauinek doctor's assistant 143 Pinkhos Podrabinek physician Candidate of Science 144 Larisa Poluektova thermal engineer 145 Vitali Pomozov philologist Gorky 146 Elena Ponomaryova philologist 147 Sergei Ponomaryov philologist Gorky 148 Vladimir Prestin engineer 149 I Protoslyavichus Lithuania 150 Valeri Prokhorov actor 151 Viktoras Pyatkus Lithuania 152 Aleksandr Rabin artist 153 Oskar Rabin artist 154 Lev Regelson physicist 155 Vitali Rekubratsky biologist 156 Grigory Rozenshtein physicist 157 Natalya Rozenshtein architect 158 Vyacheslav Rodionov Aleksandr 159 Valeri Ronkin chemical engineer Leningard 160 Ivan Rudakov mathematician 161 Mykola Rudenko writer Kiev 162 Viktor Rukhiladze Tbilisi 163 Galina Salova astronomer 164 A Sv'Urinskas Lithuania 165 Nadiya Svetlichnaya philologist 166 Feliks Svetov writer 167 Tatyana Semenova philologist 168 Feliks Serebov metal craftsman 169- l faiya Serkova architect 170 l Iariya Petrenko Podyapolskaya geologist 171 Vladimir Slepak electronics engineer 172 Valeri Smolkin chemist Vilnyus 173 Aida Simolyanskaya pensioner 174 Boris Starostin worker 175 Pyotr Starchik composer 176 Saida Starchik 177 Nina Antonovna Strokatova Karavanskaya physician Tarusa 178 Lev Talyanner 179 A Terlyatskas Lithuania 180 Leonard Terriovsky physician 181 Lyudmila Ternovskaya physician 182 Viktor Timachev geologist 183 Sara T'Verdokhlebova pensioner 184 Valentin Turchiu Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences 185 Tatyana Turchina engineer 186 Roksana Urban philologist 187 Kirill Uspensky Kostsinsky translator Leningrad 188 Mikhail Utevsky erigineer 189 economist ' Natalya Fyodorova 20 190 E Finkelshtein physicist Lithuana 191 Sergei Khodorovich programmer 192 Tatyana Khodorovich linguist 193 Igor Khokhlushkin z·estorer 194 Valentina Chikatueva engineer Luga 195 Leonid Shabashov 196 Nadezhda Shatunovskaya pensioner 197 A Sheduikis Lithuania 198 Mikhail Shepelev 199 Bella Shlifshtein pensioner 200 Aleksandr Shuster mathematician 201 Sergei Khakhaev chemist Leningrad 202 Anatoly Shcharansky mathematician 203 Vadim Shcheglov 204 Nadezhda Elskaya artist 205 Natalya Yurysheva 206 M Yuryavichyus Lithuania 207 Irina Yakir 208 Rimma Yakir 209 Father Gleb Yakunin priest 210 Efrem Yankelevich physicist 211 Elena- Akimenko Krasnodar Territory Pentecostalist 212 Aleksandr Bibikov Krasnodar Territory Pentecostalist 213 Vladimir Bibikov Krasnodar Territory Pentecostalist 214 Esfir Bibikova Krasnodar Territory Pentecostalist 215 Nikolai Bobarykin Krasnodar Territory Pentecostalist 2Hi Alla Bobarykina Krasnodar Territory Pentecostalist 217 Valeri Galushkin Krasnodar Territory Pentecostalist 218 Lidia Galushkina Krasnodar Territory Pentecostalist 219 Varvard Goretaya Krasnodar Territory Pentecostalist 220 Enokh Goretoi Krasnodar Territory Pentecostalist 221 Nadezlida Goretaya Krasnodar Territory Pentecostalist 222 Nikolai Goretoi Krasnodar Territory Pentecostalist 223 Irina Matyash Krasnodar Territory Pente costalist 224 Vasili Patrushev Krasnodar Territory Pentecostalist 225 Innokenti Patrushev Laruk 226 Evgeni Patrushev Primorsk Territory city of Nakhodka 227 Vasili Patrushev Primorsk Territory city of Nakhodka 228 Boris Perchatkin Primorsk Territory city of Nakhodlrn 229 Nadezhda Pishchenko Krasnodar Territory Pentecostalist 230 Anatoli Pishchenko Krasnodar Territory Pent ecostalist 231 Fyodor Sidenko Krasnodar Territory Pentecostalist 232 Vera Sidenko Krasnodar Territory Pentecostalist 233 Vera Shukina 234 V Yaugyalis Lithuania 235 Naum Melman Professor of Mathematics 236 Dimitry Dudko priest 237 Vladimir Shilkov Evangelical Christians-Baptists Ryazan 238 Mikhail Murkin Evangelical Christians-Baptists Ryazan 239 Leonid Murkin Evangelical Christians-Baptists Ryazan 240 Rostislav Galetsky Evangelical Christians-Baptists Ryazan 241 Ivan Kuz Evangelical •Christians-Baptists Ryazan 242 Valeri Maresin biologist 243 Ari Mizyakin 244 V Fain 245 Iosif Begun 246 Povorkov 247 I Kosharovskaya 248 A Mai ·249 L Godlin 250 Orleansky _ 251 M Zeleny 252 A Shatov 253 V Faerman 254 Yuri Kublanovsky 255 Irina McClellan 256 Vladimir Skvirsky 257 D Genov 258 Aleksandr Ivanchenko 259 G Livshits 260 Oleg Vorobev Tarusa 261 Stefaniya Shabatura artist political exile Kurgan Province 262 Oksana Meshko Kiev 263 Ada Nikolskaya 264 Aleksandr Yakir 265 Evgeny Yakir 266 Dina Beilina 267 J osif Beilin 268 Kirill Podrabinek loader 269 Aleksandr Lerner physicist Doctor of Science 270 Ida Nudel 271 L Schastlivaya 272 F Gandel 273 G Abrina 27 4 Semyon Ginzburg 275 Aleksandr Verkhman Kiev 276 Iosif Markov 277 Viktor Lavrinenko 278 Ivar Zhukovskis Latvia 279 Viktor Kalnynsh Riga 280 Yurts Ziemelis Latvia 281 Natalya Mikhailova 282 'l'atyana Drozhina 283 Aleksei Smirov 284 Valentina Savinkova 285 Sergei Levin Leningrad 286 Irina Kastire artist 287 Viktor Golovin engineer 288 Mikhail Kaplan 289 Leonid Tymchuk Odessa 290 Anna Golumbievskaya 291 Emiliya Ilina engineer Leningrad 292 Faina Koss biologist Leningrad 293 Vadim Baranov chauffeur 294 Galina Baranova housewife 295 Mariya Slepak physician 296 Sanya Lipavsky Candidate of Medical Sciences 297 Lev Gendin worker 298 Elena Sirotenko 299 Vladimir Sheinker 300 Arkady Polishuk journalist 301 Viktor Elistratov 302 Boris Chernobylsky radio engineer 303 Evgeni Pashnin political exile Vorkuta 304 L L Pertsev 305 A A Pertseva 306 Iosif Dyadkin physician 307 I E Sofieva 308 Leonid· Siry worker Odessa 309 Valentina Siraya Odessa 310 Adel Naidenovich 311 Vs Radionov 312 Yuri Mashkov Aleksandrov 313 Airatoli Ivanov 314 Rait Mukhamedvedov 315 I•rina Kristi mathematician 316 V B Sosinsky writer Odessa National Hero of France 317 Lyudmila Komm Leningrad 318 N Kistyakovsky translator 319 Yuri Gorodentsev 320 Vasili Barladyanu Odessa 321 Elena Danielyan Odessa 322 Viktor Borovsky 323 Sergei Shevchenko 324 Genrikh Altunyan 325 Aleksandr Shtelmakh 326 Yuri Avrutsky STATEMENT OF SUPPORT FOB THE GINZBUBG FAMILY On February 2 the weekly Literaturnaya Gazeta which specializes in slander-0us campaigns against dissidents published an article under rthe title Liars 21 and forgers signed former member of the Union of Writers A Petrov Agatov This article which is actually a denunciation was aimed primarily against A Gfnzburg and Yu Orlov Those who realize how close the link is between the Soviet press and the organs of repression immediately realized that they are in real danger The well-known human right defender General Petr Grigorenko who spent many years in a psychiatric ward because of his determined defense of all those oppressed and was released recently thanks to the pressure of world public opinion wrote with his wife Zinaida the following open letter When our organs of repression want to get even with human right defenders they often fabric-ate criminal charges against them The first step in the fabrication of such an affair against Aleksandr Ginzburg was the publication of the article Liars and forgers in the weekly Literaturnaya Gazeta on February 2 1977 Aleksandr Ginzburg in his capacity as representative of the Solzhenitsyn Fund performs a great task in taking care of political prisoners and their families There is no such thing as help to political prisoners in the budget of the Soviet Red Cross The old Russian tradition of helping them has been eradicated from our daily life Politic-al prisoners are tortured by hunger impossibly hard work and by persecution of their families To counteract all these measures of repression Aleksandr Ginzburg organized moral ancl material aid to prisoners of conscience and their families This is why he is being persecuted by the regime However it is not so easy to try person because he performed humanitarian activity especially in a country where so much is written and said about humanism and about mutual help Thus it becomes necessary to use slander The mechanism has already started working currency dealer alcoholic immoral inclividual hoodlum etc etc We know the Ginzburg family very well They are loving and hard-working We know Aleksandr's mother Lyudmila Ilyinichna retired from work we know his wife Arina mother of two small sons and of course we know Aleksandr himself After release from prison he was ordered to live in the town of Tarusa 130 km far from Moscow where his family lives We were witnesses to all the difficulties Ginzburg had looking for -a job in state-owned enterprises and how he was fired soon after he finally found work In order to provide a living for his family he worked at all sorts of temporary jobs and those for whom he worked always were most grateful to him for the excellent work he did They were astounded at his efficiency at his many qualifications and at his skill He is a locksmith a carpenter an electrician a radiotechnician and he performs every job with great love and thoroughness Our people used to say that such craftsmen have hands of gold But where can we publicly say what we know and what we think of him Where can we publish our opinion Is there one single publication in all of the Soviet Union which ever published one word of truth ab0ut those who speak out in defense of human rights in the Soviet Union This is why we appeal to the prog ressive media of the world asking them to speak out in defense of an honest man a good man former political prisoner Aleksandr Ginzburg who is again threatened with arrest and with a prison term as punishment for humanity for charity for help to political prisoners· and their families To conclude this letter we want to say -a few words about the author of the article in the Literatu rnaya Gazeta After his release from camp in 1975 A Petrov went to Ginzburg •and he visited other families among them onrs Everybody tried to help him Religious groups Pentecostals considering him to be a new member of their community collected eleven thousand rubles for him so that he could buy a house-which bas never been bought bec-ause the money is no longer there Petrov's wife who has a baby on her hands is compelled to sell her old things to feed her family But the author of the letter who by the way did not work for one single day after his release from camp has lots of wine He certainly should not accuse other people of drinking It hurts one to see the downfall of a man although it is not the first time we witness it A Petrov likes to speak of the devil We would like to ask him for how much he sold bis soul to him February 3 1977 ZINAIDA GRIGORENKO PETR GRIGORENKO OTHER · LE TERS• F SUPPORT fOR GINZBURG_ to Iu addition the ietter by Genetai'_Grigo enko and his wife severai letters Were wrjtteu by peopl l who lrnew Petz ov-4-gatov the ·signer of t e 'slanderous ilrticle in Literaturna11a· Gazetd intimately and denounced his lies Amqng these letters there is one by a group of political prisoners of the Mord9via -labo_r c_a4lps 19 signatures a letter from a forrner labor camp inmate Ponomarev and a letter from astronomer Kronid Lyubarsl y released- from labor camp in 1977 ' All these people knew im pei 3onally ' ' To The_Ihternational Organization Amnesty International From Ii-ina Sergeevna Zholkovsky On February 3 1977 in Moscow my husband Aleksandr Ilich Ginzburg was arrested by organs of the KGB on the day following the publication in tlle Literar11 Gazette of an article ·slande_ring him The brutal circumstances of his arrest oblige me to ask you for help For the last three year's my husband has been representative of the Social Fund to Aid Political Prisoners and Their Families which was founded by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn In the three years of the Fund's activity more than 900 families of political prisoners have received help and support In· May 1976 my husband joined the Group to Promote Observance of the Helsinki Agreements in the U S S R There is every reason to believe that it was precisely this work of his which enraged the authorities in our country and provoked· their decision to arrest him My husband has already been arrested twice by Soviet authorities in 1960for the publication of a type-written collection or poetry Syntax in 1967-for the compilation of a collection of materials on the trial of Sinyavsky and baniel ' l'his collection entitled White Book was published in the West · My husband is·now 40 years old Altogether he has spent seven years in prison and in camps These years adversely affected his health He suffers from intestinal and duodenal ulcers and gastritis Not long before his arrest my husband_ was discharged from the hospital where he had spent 20 days under treatment for' bronchial pneumonia with incipient tubercular inflammation He was ·sent for continued treatment to a tuberculosis clinic showing a continuous high temperature and carrying a certificate of unfitness for work On the evening of lfebruary 3 my husband dressed in light clothing went out to a telephone booth The authorities had long before disconnected our apartment phone He went out-and did not return They grabbed him at the doorway of our building and considered it unnecessary to inform r ne about it Leaving my two small children in the apartment and ill myself with ·a temperature my friends and I rode around all night to police stations until finally in the reception room of the KGB I was told that my husband was being held on their instructions · ·· On tpe following day it became clear that held meant arrested And on that very night l 'ebruary 3 personnel of the KGB knowing full well about my husliand's illness took him away to Kaluga Prison Kaluga is located 200 kilometers from Moscow It is not hard to imagine how damp cold prison cells can affect the health of a man with uncured pneumonia and incipient tuberculosis It is also well known how harmful the diet in Soviet prisons is even for a healthy man · I fear for my husband's life · I ask for your help February 1977 XOTE -A I G1n burg Is imprlson d at the following address Kaluzhsky sledstvenny isolyator Klara Tsetkln Street 'No 101 P Ya IZ 37-l The address of the Kaluga KGB office 248610 Kaluga Lenin Street No 72 Telephone '7-23-31 · TO THE HEADS OF THE PARTICIPATING STATES OF THE HELSINKI AGREEMENTS I appeal to you in the capacity of representative of political prisoners detained in Vladimir Prison Only several days ago I myself was one of them· a situation which gives me the moral right to speak in their behalf I also have been formally authorized by the majority of the prisoners to make a statement in their L 23 I know the grief with which _the Vladimir political prisoners will react to the ·news of the arrest of Aleksandr Ginzburg prominent activist of the Soviet Dcm•ocratic Movement Tl ese prisoners and their families have over the course of se ·eral years felt the beneficial results of Aleksandr Ginzl mrg's untiring activity as distributor of th e Solzhenitsyn Fund for assistance to political prisoners Few others have done as much to alleviate the physical and moral conditions ·under which prisoners-of-conscience are kept in the Soviet Union Few others are so deeply loved and respected among political prisoners Aleksandr Giuzburg's boundless selflessness in his worl and his total unselfishness are widely known We are humbly grateful to him Active in the Public Group to Promote Observance of the Helsinki Agreements in the USSR since the moment of its creution Aleksandr Ginzburg has fully demonstrated his qualities as a battler for human rights and a confirmed democrat Now his noble labors have been rudely cut short Once again he is behind Jars Physical reprisal is not the only threat to this ill man 'Attempts are being made to blacken his pure name in a slanderous press campaign This should not be tolerated In behalf of the political prisoners in Vladimir Prison I appeal to you to stand up quickly and effectively in defense of -Aleksandr Ginzburg to use all the means at your disposal to expedite his release Your actions should not be the result of an opportunistic judgment of today's political and diplomati-c situation nor should their immediate effect-ivcness be a major consideration The matter at hand is a humane act and only moral considerations should play a part in your decision The action of the Soviet punitive agencies against Aleksandr Ginzburg is distinguished by its particular impudence and cynicism sinC it was carried out ·precisely at a time when world-wide indignation is being directed at governments of the Soviet Union Czechoslovakia Poland and the German Democratic Re1rnhlic as a result of their'treatment of dissenters ' l'his is a challenge which cannot go unanswered This is a challenge not only to us but to you as well Aleksandr Ginzburg must be released KRONID LYUBARSKY Astronomer pol-itioal prisoner 1972-77 February 4 1977 EXCERPTS FROM AN OPEN LETTER WRITTEN BY YURI FEDOROV Inmate of Labor Camp ZHKH 385 1-6 in Mordovia USSR Fedorov was tried and sentenced together with the Leningrad group which purportedly planned to hijacl a plane in order to go to Israel at the time when the emigration had not yet started · On the eve of the Belgrade conference the administration of prisons and labor camps and in particular that part of it which manages our political ·sector for criminals particularly dangerous to the state initiated a new period of unprecedented terror and blatant violations of all rights as if they were planning to make use within a short time of all the possibilities of physical and moral pressures against the political prisoners This obviously reflects a general trend of the regime's policy with regard to the dissenters as confirmed by the jailing of those defending human rights in Moscow and by a ·simultaneous spreading of terror throughout all the forced labor camps for political prisoners In the camps and prisons of the Soviet Union Stalinist conditions are Teappearing Laws are no longer taken into consideration only special instructions by the Ministry of the Interior are being carried out Every time a prisoner dares mention an article of the law to defend his rights he is told that the law bas been outruled by a subsequent internal instruction During the past three months January February and March 1977 without any stated reason I have been deprived of the right to purchase in the camp store not only food products but even soap tooth powder and tobacco I am constantly being threatened that they will put handc uffs on me although I am mot guilty of any violence The camp management has created a group of ·Criminals who are under its protection and who are being used against the J Olitical prisoners beating them up and threatening to murder them Human xlghts No gentlemen now it's a question merely of survival A senior camp 24 official not long ago told me of course it's my personal opinion but I would simply shoot all such as you It woulqn't be a great loss anyway Twenty persons in• this camp not even worth talking about Others don't say it but they think it ' I request all persons conaerned and all the competent international organizations to discuss the creation of a commission to investigate the situation in the camps and prisons of the USSR And I ask that an International Court be created to try in absentia all those who are guilty of cruelty to prisoners of mental and physical terror of assassination of political prisoners And at the same time I beg all those who know me and have compassion for my fate to take care of my family should I perish I beg all the Christians in the world to pray for the salvation of my soul God forgive me Amen · YURI FEDOROV 1 -IORDOVIA Special regime camp meaning particularly strict and cruel conditions of life ana work THE CHRISTIAN COMMITTEE FOB THE DEFENSE OF RIGHTS OF BELIEVERS IN TEii USiS·R summary translation On February 3 in Moscow Aleksandr Ginzburg member of the Group to Pro·mote the Observance of the Helsinki Agreements in the USSR and representative of the Russian Social Fund founded by Solzhenitsyn for the assistance of politiC 11 prisoners and their families was arrested by the KGB · A Ginzburg is a believer an Orthodox Christian AU his noble and selfsacrificing activity was the embodiment of the 'Saviour's commandment to love one's fellow man As a member of the Helsinki Group he has helped people who have suffered because their civil rights were violated and has fought for the actual implementation of these -international agreements in our country The Helsinki Group has received letters from ind'ividuals who are suffering all over the country and A Ginzburg has assisted them as much as he could He has also helped believers whose rights have been violated by government agencies Among the documents confiscated during the search of Ginzburg·•s apartment on January 4 were ones concerning the violations of rights of believers in the USSR Political prisoners and their families especially need assistance in our country and Ginzburg became the representative of the Solzhenitsyn Fund Two hundred and seventy thousand rubles have been transmitted to political prisoners and their families Ginzburg was well aware of the possible consequences of the assistance he gave He had already served 8 years in a prison camp for his civic activity And now again ill he is ready to go to prison for helping his fellow man Very few are capable of such Christian love Yuri Galanskov died in camp from stomach ulcers-A Ginzburg suffering from the same disease is again prepared to go to camp On December 25 on the eve of the founding of the Christian Committee for the Defense of Rights of Believers he had told us about the searches that had been conducted at the a partments of memhers of the Ukrainian branch of the Helsinki Group during which those conducting the search had planted pornography foreign currency and even a rifle Ginzburg then knew that his tum was next · And we know that Ginzburg had no dealings with the foreign currency that was supposedly found in his apartment One of the principles of Solzhenitsyn who was sending money through the mail for the support of political prisoners and their families was that all transactions be conducted according to Soviet law Ginzburg acted strictly within the framework of these requirements How is it possible to imprison a man whose activities fall strictly within the law who is honest selfless and self-sacrificing In order to do this slander is essential On February 2 in Li teraturnaya Gazeta there appeared an article by Petrov-Agatov coptaining vile slanders on Ginzburg Ginzburg was arrested the following day He has been accused of dealing in foreign currency and of political crimes in our country where there are no political prisoners 25 Thos the campaign against Ginzburg has begun In his Christmas message Ecumenical Patriarch Dmitri issued a can to heads of state the Church hierarchy religious activists and believers of all faiths to make 1977 the year of religious freedom Aleksandr Ginzburg has made a great contribution to the struggle for human rights and religious freedom yet now he is in prison and threatened with a lengthy term And his sufferings began in 1977- the year of religious freedom We the members of the Christian Committee for the Defense of Rights of Believers turn to all Christians who will hear ·and respond to Patriarch Dmitri's -call Remember the imprisoned Christian Aleksandr Ginzburg in your prayers and actively fight for his release May your prayers and actions help towards his release signed 'FATHER GLEB YUKUNIN ARCHD EAOON VABSONOFY KHAmULIN VIKTOR KAPITANCHUK February 7 1977 STATEMENT THE COUNCIL OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN BAPTISTS PENTECOSTALISTS IN THE USSR It is known all over the world that the persecution of Christians and other dissenters has not ceased in the Soviet Union The latest arrest of Aleksandr Ginzburg testifies to this fact We believers of good will who have made no compromise with monstrous atheism and who hold fast to uncompromising service to Our Lord Jesus Christ united in one brotherhood as the Council of Evangelical Baptists commonly -called Pentecostalists raise our voice in defense of Aleksandr Ginzburg against -the campaign of the KGB By the grace of God in the USSR there are not less than one hundred and fifty thousands of us Because of the constant persecution and terrorization of Pentecostallsts in the USSR we will not place our signatures but we all unanimously raise our voice in the defense of Aleksandr Ginzburg not only before the world community but we also pray for him to the Lord We call upon 'believers of the world to raise their voices in prayer to God in defense of Aleksandr Ginzburg February 9 1977 THE COUNCIL OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN BAPTISTS APPEAL TO PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES JIMMY CARTER FROM VLADIMIR SHELKOV CH AIRMAN OF THE ALL•UNION CHURCH OF FAITHFUL AND FREE SEVEN TH-DAY ADVENTISTS SUMMARY As representative of the Seventh-Day Adventists in the Soviet Union Vladimir Shelkov issued an appeal February 23 1977 to President Carter to come forward in defemi of A I Ginzburg Yu Orlov A D Sakharov and others actively engaged in the struggle for human rights I appeal to you most respected President Carter to turn your attention to these individuals waging an ideological struggle for God-given rights and freedoms boldly protesting all forms of repression and discrimination They are completely innocent of the accusations heaped upon them by our atheistic government they have committed no crimes before the Constitution since the Constitution itself has proclaimed and legally secured the inalienable rights of manfreedom of conscience belief and conviction freedom of speech press assembly demonstration etc Nor have these men committed any crimes before their fellow countrymen whose rights they are struggling to defend even at the risk of imprisonment and death -Shelkov emphatically underscores the humanitarian activities of Ginzburg and Orlov active in the Public Group to Promote Observance of the Helsinki Agreements and management of the 1Soizhenitsyn Fund Ginzburg This as proclaimed in the Appeal is moral Christian activity of the highest order and these men must be defended by people of conscience around the world 26 The five-page appeal urges President Carter to give·the matter of huinan rights first priority · · • Do not allow the economic ties of your country with ours all the· technical scientific cultural and other such arrangements to take precedence and therefore interfere with this holy Christian and humanitarian obligation · The appeal asks President Carter as an ·authoritative state leader and a s a Christian to take all steps possible in the defense of Ginzburg Orlov and others · actively involved in the struggle for human rights·tn the USSR ADDRESSED TO THE WORKERS OF THE RENAULT FACTORIES OF FRANCE On March 2 Pravda quoted Mark Quen General Manager· of the Renault· factories Today nearly one-fourth of our machine-tool construction is lal en up by Soviet orders We welcome the strengthening of economic and cultural ties between our countries and hope that they will be useful to the workers of France ·Such· strengthening and deepening of ties means that people in one country cannot rema in indifferent to what is going on in that other country We attach great significance to the public opinion among workers in the· whole world and to their voice on the problemsof·international politics We know that the ·Soviet government also places great importance on this voice Therefore we address to you the following request Recently 5 members of the Public Group for the Observance of the Helsinki J ccords· Yu Orlov · M Rudenk6 A Ginzburg · 0 ·Tykhy a nd A '·Shi haransky were arrested in our country The activity of this Group consists of the collection iiP d 'making publkof information about he ways iri which the USSil is f1ilfi Ung the·huminitarian articles· of the Helsinki Agreements ' At the same time those arrei ted are being accused of slander and obviously t ey··wiU'be bfought 'to tr ial for this accusation · · · · · · · ·· · · _i · ' · · The humanitarian articles of the ·Helsmk1 Agreement play an extremely iin° JJ rt 1nt role Jn the development of the process of etept ind in' rlie's'_tfengthening· of cooperation between peoples The fate of the 1 arrested m embers of· tbe ' ' H lsinki _9 roup is inseparable from these prpbl ms ' Taking all thfs into acc count and simply addressin·g ourselves to your ·feeling of 'justice we calI on you riot 'to rely wholly on Soviet or Western press for information on our opi11io1i 6n 'this matter hit to form an authoritative committee of' iorlhirs ·wp ich could l ' Study all essential •information about tl e wcirk·' cif 'the ' ' Helsinl i ' Gi ot1P· · i p r so as to get_ a_cquainted with 'the dqcum nts of_ tpe 9' rou ilri ' so - t distribute to the governments of· those· countries which signed· the Helsmln Agreement • ' s · · · ···· ' _ 2 To get informed about materials connected with the arresti ' of'tii' ii'inembers· of·the Helsinki Group who were'nained'above i 3 To send representatives into the so v iet Union so that they can be present during the trial or trials of the members of the Helsinki Group Through you we ·address• ourselves to the'entire working class •of France imd' we-ask-that you· consider the matter of the arrested ineinbe'rs of the Helsinki Group in all the gravity which the problem of human rights and interriati'onal· security requires · · · · · ith respect ' • · · _ V ·Albrekht Boris 4 ltshuller E Andronova Mar k Antonyuk V ycheslav· Bakhm iri · Elena·- Bo nner · Vladimir• Borisov ' I'atyana VelikanqYa ·Ros tisla v' Galetsky Sergei Genkin Zinaida Grigorenko Petr t rigorenko Yuri Grimm Zarin3 Dzybo 1 va fosif Dulsky Nataly_a Dull na Father J$er e Z eli 1dkov Lidiya Ivanova Nikolai'Ivanov Aleksandr Ivanchenko Qhrn Icifer Irina KaJ lum Sofya ·Kalistr'atova _Evgeny Kokorin Nina Kon iarova Dleha t osterina Maya- Kremer Ivan Kuz· Dmitri Leontev Grigory Livshits Vera Lashkova Tatyana Likhacheva Naum''M imiln Igor l felchuk l likhe va Yuri' l fuJiukh Mikhnil Murkin Leonid Murkin Valentina Mashkova O sipova Y'uri'l fashkov Ada· Nikolskaya Viktor· Nekipelov Adel Naydenovich Vitaly Pomozo Mark Popoy sk_v Svetlana Pavlenkova Vladlen Pavlenkov Sergei onomarev Romanova Vyacheslav Rodionov Pinkhos Podrabinek Kirill Pcidrabinek Aleksandr· Podrabinek Feliks· Serebrov Vladimir Slepak Andrei' Sakharov · Tatyana Semenova Nina Strokatova Skvirsky Dimitri Stariko'v Oleg Solovev Vladimir• Svfrsky · Leonid 'Ternovsky Valentin Turchin Vladimir Tselkov -Nadezhda Shahmovskaya Vadim Shcheglov Natal va Yurisheva Father Gleh Yaki min Efrem Yankelevich Irina Yakir Rimma Yakir Evgeny Yakir Yi 1 Yarym-Ag11ev Vladimi'r Kornilov ' Vladimir Voinovich Malva Landa Tatyana -KJ iodorovich I Sivak Aleksandr Barabanov I Levin V Isakova Kronid 'Lyubarsky Galina Salova Yuri Gastel' A 27 TRANSLATION oF· DECLARATION OF I ·S ZHOLNOVSKAYA' Moscow YoLGINA STREET OF P YA Iz-37 I KuzNETSov iPT 31 TO THE COMMANDANT ' Today April 5 I brought a regular parcel to my husband Aleksandr Ginzburg who is in your prison I bought foodstuffs in iMoscow from among those marked on the list which hangs in your office for 'parcel deliveries However almost half of· those foodstuffs which I brought wer_ rejected although they had been accepted twice before in your Kaluga prison and are always accepted in other 'prisons including those in Moscow· No one explained to me the grounds for not accepting this food from ·me I want l l-to clear the matter up by meeting personally either with you or with investigator Osyelkov But -neither you nor he wished to meet with me All of this I consider to be a profound breach of legal procedures and an especially ·cruel treatment of'Ginzburg ·w 110 is· seriously ill I'will complain of your behavior to-higher authorities in the·press and everywhere that I consider necessary i • I J ·ZHOLKOVSKAYA · ·APRIL 5 1977 · · • S ATEM NT T T 'IE PR SS ' j From I Valitova··cor1ova and I Zholkovsl aya Ginzbmg Tw'o monhhs b av already passed' since Aleksand r Ginzburg and Ytiri Orlov were nrrested All _this time they hq v been kept under i 1Vesti1rntion fri KGB cellii · in Kl lugia and Moscow unp er 'the strictest isolation ' W e hJave n o official reports wll'atever on the status of the ir cases We know nothing about their Physical condition Ginzbu•rg was· very ·m at the time of his iarrest We ·ruave not been informed under whicli article of Russian Federation 'Criminal Code they rare charged _ · · · · 1 Moreover in Mosco ominous rumors h'ave recently_ cil'ICuLated that Ginzburg and Orlov will be tried for breaking foreign currency laws There is every reason to suppose tb at these rumors me consciously inspired by the KGB with the aim ·of demoralizing those who·_stand up in defense of the prisoners · The va rio'us fererices in the _PHro v Agatciv article to foreign currency hidden ij i the G1nzburg aparbrp ent the fiac t_hat so much money land so Iimµy valuables were cop fiscateq from Ginzburg and Orlov On the liast the thir robberyse rch of Irina Orlov 3 3 pouild_s of wool w ere even taken and before that after a search the Girizburgs were left with only 38 kopecks to support their two sn i all c4ildren 'All this forces us to fear that the authorities· have decided to moµn't_ a' criminal not ·a •P9litical cas 'against' the prisoners - _ · 'Iri many foscow enterprises 1and scientific institutes in form1atiori1al meetings are c9nducted on the subject_ Who are the dissidents during which· Ginzburg and_ OrlQv ia re frequently referred to in an ugly context · We express ·our deep anxiety over the fate of our imprisoned husj ands No matter 1how hard_the authorities try to tag t le work of Orlov 1and GJ_nzburg with a crimina_l label _we· want eyery n'e _to kl ow that the aruthorities are -persecu'ting them only for their noble humanita ri an work and chaJfity • i VALITOVA ORLOVA I ZHOLKOVSKAYA GINZBUR i -APRIL 13 1977 the EXCERPTS FROM aN OPEN LETTER VRITTEN BY TATYANA l HODOROVICH AND VICTOR NEKIPELOV Excerpts f rom an open letter written by two well-known Russi1an dissidents Tatyana Khodorovich and Victor Nekipelov port11aying the present situation of the dissidents in the Soviet Union The letter bears the title Polith al reprisal by means of Jhe Criminal Code It is dated April 30 1977 in Moscow Following the same piattJern l 'l alva Danda's case is being fabricated somewhere 0n December 18 1976 there was a fl-re in her room in the town of Krasnogorsk in IJhe Moscow· region The fire broke out under circumstances strange enough to make one suspect arson Now bhe authorities appea-r resolved to take advantage of that fire in order to get rid of one more member of the Helsinki iag reement monitoring group in the USSR 1 l f alva Landa is being prose' As stRted In document No 1 llfnlva Lnnda to ether with Tatynna Khoclorovlch Is one of the persons who undertook to carry on A Glnzburg's activity for the Russian Socia Fund 28 cuted for violation of 111rticles 99 and 150 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Republic based on the fact that the damage caused by the fire allegedly amounted to approximately 3000 rubles-this amount was calcul ated arbitrarily and is much higher than the actual damage If Malva Landa is sentenced based on viol111tion of these 111rticles she can get up to three yea rs in labor camp • State violence and 1·eprisal against dissidents and human right defenders is 111ssuming exceptionally wide proportions The regime has adopted violence as its ideology and has thus become a gangster And the fight against dissenters it uses gangster-like methods of reprisal of a criminal pattern Political 'and ideological dissenters and simply people performing bumanitari an charitable activity are being charged with crimin al offenses 111nd jailed people are being beaten up killed Dr Sawharov denounced five cases of mysterious lllssassinations which could well be political revenge their windows broken thek telephones cut off threatening messages placed in their mail-boxes etc etc They beat up Jews who 111sk to emigrate to Israel Volga Germans who 111sk to go to Western Germany Crimean Tarta rs who want to return to thel r homeland The 70-year-old academician Likbachev was beaten up for fusing to sign a letter against Sakharov and a few months·later unknown persons tried to pour gasoline under the door of his flat in order to set it on fire At the same time a violent press campaign is being conducted against all· the •diss¢ntets This huge propaganda·' effort t'o present 'them··au ·as crimitui'ls obviously is based on the idoo that if one slanders someone enough people will eventually believe it But never before in history has it happened that the state considered its political adversaries and even its moral opposition as a criminal element to be dealt with by gangster-like methods Look at the case of Oksana l leshko from Kiev a member of the Kiev Helsinki monitoring group She is 70 years old The prosecutor conducting the search at her home entered through the window-breaking the glass-and when the old woman refused to submit to a body search because there was no warrant for it he twisted her arms and held her by her wrists while his woman-assistant stripped her naked to search her It must be difficult for people in the West to even imagine that such situations exist People in the West have been brought up to respect the law and to believe in the authority and fairnesis of state justice Such people may become indignant nbout violations of human rights' ' in the countries of Eastern Europe but they do not understand the problem fully In fact one should ·not speak· of viola'tion · of rights but of the total lack of any iand all rights There are no rights There is no violation of the laws by the state Iaws are simply disappearing-yielding their place to a blind inisane criminal ideology But people in the West do not understand this and therefore they shake hands with the criminals greet them during assemblies smilingly sign commercial treaties sell the wheat etc Now we are not asking for anything and we are not even trying to protest We would only_ wish that for once people in the West make an effort and try to imagine how·terrifying is the world in '' which we live Our ·wrlt r Belim1ky said that a crook is strong because he treats honest pe_ople as crooks while they treat crooks as honest people This is still true 'e want to call your attention to this problem And we hope that somebody will begin drawing up a full and exact list of all the criminal actions committed by the ruling regime in the Sovi_et Union -in orderAo· suffocate• dissent ·It is an unpleasant ·task ·but it is historically indispensable · for the coming· righteous moral judgement of the Soviet hiangmen of the 70's Mr FAsCELL We have another vote on the floor of the House now Mr SIMON It is a quorum call Mr F ASCELL Then we will go right on Our next witnesses this morning are Lyudmila Alekseeva and Lidia V oronina They are both scholars whose search for truth has led them into dissent disscussion and criticism Mrs Alekseeva is an historian a specialist in archeology who worked as an editor in the publishing house of the Soviet Academy of Sciences until she signed a petition on behalf of Aleksandr Ginzburg in 1968 and was expelled from her job and the Communist Party She went back to work in 1971 as a clerk-typist in an institute of sociological re- 29 search where Miss Voronina was w·orking as a research assistant and rose to an editorial position at the institute before leaving her job last year Both of onr witnesses have been active participants in the Moscow Helsinki Group Mrs Alekseeva a founding member is authorized to speak for the group in the ·west Miss Voronina served the group as a field investigator traveling to the Caucasus and the Far East ast December to visit the unofficial Pentecostalist congregations whose members suffer continual persecution for their beliefs They can report firsthand on the harassment of the Helsinki watchers and the remarkable work the Public Groups have done despite such severe repression They are accompanied here by a remarkable American businessman Edward Kline head of the Kline Bros chain of department stores and sponsor of Khronika Press the New York publishers who have clone so much to channel to the vVest the voices of dissent speaking in the Soviet Union Mr Kline has given great energy wisdom and compassion to the cause of human rights He is also going to help us out this morning as a translator · We are delighted to have all of you here this morning You may proceed STATEMENT OF LYUDMILA ALEKSEEVA AND LIDIA VORONINA ACCOMPANIED BY EDWARD KLINE Mrs ALEKSEEVA The Moscow Group to Promote Observance of the Helsinki Agreements in the U S S R has entered its second year Analogous groups in the Ukraine Lithuania and Georgia have also bee_n at work during the last 6 months I want to speak abont the work of the Moscow Group of which I am a member-specifically how and from whom the Group receives information about human rights violations in the U S S R how the group insures the reliability of the information it uses and how this information is passed on · Excuse my pronunciation-Mr Kline will read the rest of my statement Mr F ASCELL Your English is excellent Mr KLINE This is especially important now since the Soviet authorities h tve demonstrated that they consider the activity of the Helsinki Groups intolerable a nd have tried to stop it any way they can Since the moment these groups were formed their members have been under continuous KGB surveillance They have been followed their telephones bugged their correspondence inspected In December of last year searches at the apartments of members of the Helsinki Groups began-first in the Ukraine then in Moscow Lithuania and Georgia the arrests began in February In the 1ast 4 months nine members of the Helsinki Groups have been arrested In Moscow-Yuri Orlov Aleksandr Ginzburg and Anatoly Shcharansky in the Ukraine-Mykola Rudenko and Oleksiy Tykhy and in Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia and Merab Kostava Mykola l fatusevych and Myroslav Marynovich were detained in the Ukraine in April and their present status-whether or not they are currently in prison-is unclear 92-4302-77-3 30 At the present time neither vc nor the relatives of those who have hecn arrested know what charges have been ma de It appears however that the Soviet authorities are reluctant to try them openly for their activity in the Helsinki Groups Because of today's international situation it seems more likely that they will try to fabricate criminal charges such as the reported treason accusation against Anatoly Shcharansky about which we learned only 2 days ago The searches and campaign of slander in the press testify to this Just 2 days ago another founding member of the Helsinki Groups falva Landa was sentenced to 2 years internal exile for negligent destruction of property and an accidental fire in her apartment She has appealed that decision I will begin now with general remarks Our group is the natural offspring of the human tights movement in the U S S R which emerged around 1965 in conjunction with tlrn protests inspired by the arrest and trial of Andrei Sinyavsky and Ynli Daniel · All Helsinki Gronp members are participants in the human righ ts movement_ which i_s _essentially a mora no a volitica n ovm 1ent Human· rights activists are persons with cbffermg poht1cal VIews ranging from socialists to monarchists but they all share the belief that society can only develop through the effective exercise of elementary human and civil rights They all renounce violent methods-of struggle as a· matter of principle and they condemn such methods These characteristics apply equally to the Moscow Helsinki Group The group's 1nembers agree that two factors have contributed to the success of the group's work First· the text of the Helsinki Confer ence's Final Act including the provisions affecting human rights was published in Soviet newspapers and thus became widely known Second information on the creation of our gi-oup including its goals and the names of its members ·was broadcast bv the fo lr most popular foreign radio stations transmitting to the Soviet Union Radio Liberty Voice of America BBC and Deutsche ·Welle Prof Yuri Orlov the chairman of our group has calculated that 1 out of_5 adult Soviet citizens listen to broadcasts of these Radio stations Thus-our group becaii 1e known from the day of its formation and this encouraged a stream or information from different regions of the Soviet Union and from representatives of different social classes In announcing tl e formatio µ of our group we decleared our intention to strive for genuine fulfillment by the Soviet authorities of the Final Act's provisions affecting human rights In order to promote this gmtl we intended to collect information on violations of these provisions and to communicate such information to the people and governments of those countries which had signed the elsinki Final Act including the Soviet Government and public Our name can be translated as the Group to Encourage Fulfillment of the Helsinki Accords in the U S S R That name was chosen in ordel' to underline our members' loyalty to our government and the members' desir·e to work together with the auth1 n-ities toward c nscicntious fulfillment of the human rights obligations undertaken at Helsinki The group's activity by its very nature had t9 ·be completely legal in form and substance ' Ve announced our group's formation publicly 31 at t press conference where Andrei Sakharov introduced the group to foreign correspondents At the same time we mailed the statement announcing the group's formation to Leonid Brezhnev's chancellery In this statement we declared the group's aims and listed the names and addresses of i'ts members Since its forma tion the group has issued about 100 statements appeals and bulletins on violations of the basic rights of Soviet citizens Twenty-two of these statements have be en numbered documents analyzing various categories of common violations 'Material for these sta tements had to some extent been accumulated by group members prior to the group's forma tion For example as participants in the human rights movement we had known for some time the informatiqn on Mustafa Dzhemilev's trial used in the group's first document and the fact ' on the treatment of prisoners of conscience in Soviet labor camps and prisons used in Document 3 But most of our information was received from sources outside of the group itself Sometimes the information was passed along in a chain from one -person to the next and the chain could have many links Sometimes much to our surprise complaints pertinent to our work arrived through the mail Occasionally telephone calls from other cities got through to us with news about searches arrests the confinement of dissenters in psychiatric hospitals and so on People also came to us to present their complaints in person sometimes afterti aveling great distances Ve called these people khodoki an old Russian word which literally means walkers but which once was used to denote messengers who delivered petitions addressed l y the peasants to the autl 10rities Some messengers reported violations of their own rights or of the rights of friends or relatives for example the right of emigration Others arrived as -representatives of significant groups such as the Pentecostalists wp_o number about 500 000 persons in the Soviet Union And a few arrived as representatives of entire peoples such as the Crimean Tatars and the Meskhetians The str0 1 m o f messengers has swelled with the Group's fame And talks with these messengers occupied us and especially Professor Orlov for several hours a day or even for whole clay$ at a time The messengers arrive unexpectedly often at inopportune moments and few of them are able to state the essentials of 'their case concisely During these meetings they tend t relate their own life stories and to ask for advice on questions completely irrelevant to the Group's activity Their tales require scrupulous analysis to separate emotional exaggerations and inaccuracies from the facts of the case Despite the burden involved in such contacts 'the stream of messengers is a gratifying phenomenon since we regard it as an indication that Soviet citizens from many walks of life recognize the need for the group's work The messengers come from various social classes The majority are blue-collar and white-collar Yorkers and peasants Document 13 was compiled on the basis of workers' statements The authors live in widely separated places they do not know one another but their reqnest ' coincide they call 1ot suppo1t their families by honest labor in •Documents 1 l-1 4 and 17 ·as well ns other Public Group Reports were puhllshcd In English trnm lntlon by the Commission on February 24 Documents 15 1 6 18-20 ns WP II ns other Public Group Reports ond Appeals were published In English translA tlon bv the Commission on June ·3 In addition document 2 and an appeal Issued by the Workln ·Committee to Investhmte tlie Abuse of Psychiatry for Political Purposes appear In the appendix to this hearing · 32 the U S S R and Soviet trade unions offer them no avenue for a collective struggle to improve their lot Docwnent 13's appendix contains four appeals of this sort but other similar statements reached us after we had published this document Document 9 which also concerns emigration is based on the statement of a messenger sent by peasants of the village of llinka in the Voronezh region · In addition to the streams of emigration known in the 1-Vest-the Jews and ethnic Germans-the numbers of people who wish to emigrate for economic or political reasons are raprdly growing These would-be emigrants include Russians Ukrainians and members of other Soviet nationality groups It is at the present time difficult to determine how vigorously the Soviet authorities will oppose the departure of these various groups of emigrants but I believe that under any conditions the numbers of emigrants leaving under the auspices of the Tolstoy fund should increase noticeably The most prevalent motives for emigration apart from those noted in Document 13 on the economic and political problems of workers are reunification of families persecution for religious beliefs discrimination on the basis of nationality -and discrimination on the basis of political views or other opinions · Document 4 relates some of-the more dramatic refusals hi faniily reunification cases Document 9 which I have already mentioned concerns the collecti fe farmers of Ilinka denied the right to emigrate on the grounds that no 01ie would be left to work their collective farm Doc umeri't _11 concerns Pentecostalist congregations numbering about 1 000 persons who wish to emigrate to escape persecution for their religious beliefs Pentecostalists are almost all Russian and Ukrainian peasants and blue-collar workers or clerks since their refusal to conceal their religious beliefs has in effect barred their children from receiving higher education over the past 60 years Document 12 concerns the families of Ukrainian political prisoners who want to emigrate from their homeland For them the motivation is the persecution which continues even after prisoners have served their full terms and which affeots the families and friends of former prisoners of conscience as well as the ex-prisoners themselves Docnment_ 20 is also devoted to the problem of emigration and particularly to the renunciation of citizenship which has become a widespread phenomenon · · Thus 7 of the group's 22 numbered documents concern the individual's right to choose where he wishes to live in our judgment a basic human right_ The attention we have given to the problem of emigration does ndt reflect any exaggerated interest on the part of the group members Instead it is a consequence of the many complaints and reqirnsts for help which we have received I _can say the same for our other documents Their topics were d1cta tecl not by the members' personal tastes but by the materials which we received w·e simply organized these materials and che ked the reliability of the information presented · A substantial p9rtion of the_ group's output deals with persecution for r ligioi 1_s eli efs p lthough only ne of the iroup's founding mem·bers 1s a religious believer But Baptists and Pente costalists Jehovah's 33 Witnesses Roman Catholics and Russian Orthodox believers send us appeals and documentation of persec ution Complaints about the trE-atment of religions believers have been so numerous tha t a special Christian Committee for the Defense of Believers' Rights has been formed separate from onr Group The three members of this commi'ttee-Father Gleb Yakunin Deacon Varsonofy Khaibulin and Viktor Ka pitanchuk-are all Russian Orthodox but they are defending the interests of other Christian faiths as well The committee works closely with our Moscow Group The other Helsinki Groups which have been formed in the national republics of Lithuania Georgia and tlw Ukraine have also published material on religious persecutions Our documents concerning violations of the right of national minorities to equality before the law were compiled from information 'upplied by representatives of the Crimean Tatars and the Meskhetians The Crimran Tatars were deported from the Crimea to Central Asia in 1944 The Meskhetia us are ethnic Georgians of the Moslem faith who li e l n ar the Turkish border until their deportation by the Soviet authorities m 1944 Let me explain how the group checks the reliability of the information which we receive The easiest case is when the petitioners substantia te with official documents the authorities' violations of civil rights An example is Document 5 on the persecution of religious families which cites cases of Baptists' being deprived of their parental riglits because they educate their children in their own faith instead of in the spirit of Communist mor ality as prescribed by the Soviet Law on Marriage and the Family Document 5 quotes from court verdicts resolutions adopted workers' collectives and character reports given to children at school ·These authentic documents were 'furnished to our group and served as the basis for Document 5 A serond example if the case of Vladimir Pavlov a taxi driver ·from Maikop in the North Caucasus who was convicted for his beliefs Pavlov's case is clescribE-d in an appendix to 'Document 13 The group received the text of the court verdict in the Pavlov case and the Russian Republic Supreme Court's reply to Pavlov's appeal Occasionally our assertions of human rights violations have beeil based on the texts of unpublished instructions intended only for official use Document 3 contains ·information on the dietary norms in Soviet prisons and labor camps and also describes the punishments inflicted in ·those institutions Our group received bits of unpublished instructions from former political prisoners who had collected them from the replies of prison and camp administr a tions to prisoners' complaints about poor food or punishments Some of these replies ·included references to or even citations of the pertinent -instructions For several years we had also collected testimony from ex-convicts who ·had served time in political camps and prisons about the regi1p e1 1 diet and punishments in phces of confinement This extensive material confirmed the accuracy of the texts of instructions which we cited in D cument 3 Mr F ASCELL ·Mr Kline we will have to interrupt you here because we have to go to the floor of the House t o a e_ft_vote Ve will be right back Ve will stand in recess for a few mmutes Short recess takP n · 34 1 fr lfAscE L he Commission will come to order Mr Kline you Just fimshed tellmg us about Document 3 so you can pickup from there and conclude your testimony Mr KLINE Before we do tha t Mrs Alekseeva just wants to say a · few words · Mr F ASCELL Certainly Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian J Mr KLINE translating Mrs Alekseeva regrets very much that her colleagues in the Moscow group cannot be here to sec and to listen to what you are doing because she knows how much she appreciates it-- --how· much they would a ppreciate it Since they cannot be here to thank you in ·person she would like to thank you for the time and attention you have given to human rights problems in the Soviet Union And now I will go back to the statement -The unpublished sections of the instructions which govern residence permits for former political prisoners who have completed their sentences are used ' to restrict such ex-prisoners in their choice of domicile inside the U 'S S R The sections whid1 we cited in document 6 had been summarized in A Chronicle of Current Events No 34 The accuvacy of the text used is supported by the fact that •all political prisoners after serving their sentences have been restricted in their choice of domicile in accordance with these instructions A partial list of the persons whose choice of domicile has been limited by these instructions is included in Document 6 It has been hardest ·for us to check in formation on those oases where no documentary evidence does or could exist because violu tions of human rights occurred on the basis of a telephone call from upstairs for example and not on the basis of official regu1ations or documents This is a very widesread phenomenon in our country In such cases we have sought on-the-spot oral testimony Reports of religions persecutions related to our group by Pentecostalists for example were checked out by Lidia Voronina at our group's request Lidia Voronina is here today and she can tell you ·about her 2-wook journey-to visit several ·Pentecostalist congregations in the-North Caucasus and the Far East I mvself visited Lithuania in order to check information received from Lithuanian Catholics about religious persecutions This inf011nra tion formed the basis for our group's document 15 and the Lithuanian group's document 1 co-signed by the Moscow group Let me explain how we checked the evidence for document 15 in order to give yon some idea of our methods vVe received information that seven boys had been excluded from the senior elass of a Vilnius high school ' ve were told that the cause of their exclusion was their attendance at church services and their visits to the home of the prominent Lithuanian Roman Catholic layman Vikt oras Petkus Petkus is a founding member of the Litlnianian Helsinki group · · Secondary education is obligatory in the Soviet Union Everyone knows how difficult it is to secure the expulsion of even those student who have in fact dropped out or who pose serious disciplinary problems but in thiR case seven boys were expelled from a single school and they were all seniors 35 Taking a list of the expelled students I visited the office of the Lithuanian SSR Minister of Education A Rimkus I was accompanied by Tomas Venclova a poet and well-knowi Lithl anian d ssi Llent who later became a founding member of the L1thuaman Helsmki Group and who testified before your Commission earlier this year I explained to the minister that I was a member of the Moscow Group to Promote Observance _of the Helsinki Agreements in he U S S R and that I was interested in the reasons for the exclus10n of Sl Ven students from the Vilnius school Apparently the minister does not listen to foreign broadcasts and rn had not heard about our group He probably assumed that some sort of official group had been formed for window-dressing and asked To what agency is your group attached I answered It is a public gronp vVho directs it Dr Yuri Orlov a corresponding member of the Armenian Academy of Sciences The minister decided that with a man of such academic rank heading the group it deserved his confidence and he agreed to provide an explanation He stated that the expelled students were hooligans But he could not tell us the precise actions which had led to the exclusion of each of the seven boys I only know the general outlines of the case ' he told us Probably the school's directors could answer my question I suggested and the minister agreed emphasizing that everything was '·strictly legal in this case He meant that minutes existed of a session of the school's faculty council which has the right to petition the local board of education to exclude students from the school The minutes should describe the students' actions which prompted the petition and record the vote of the faculty council vVe left for the school in order to study the minutes The academic principal of the school Dobinas met us I explained I am from Moscow ve just visited the Minister of Education at his office concernin J' the exclusion of seven boys from your school He recommended that we visit the school to find out the facts I then asked to see the minutes of the faculty council meeting but the principal said the minutes were not at the school The secretary took them home to rewrite them the Principal told me even thou h more than a month had elapsed since the students' expulsion vouldn t you send someone for the minutes No I know that no one is home now at the secretary's house The principal summoned four teachers and I asked each of them to explain the reasons for the expulsions They gave on fused and contradictory explanations It was impossible to clarify the real facts of the case from their statements Afterward I met with the boys who had been expelled and with several of their classmates They told me that during the previous school year these seven students had been summond from their classes by the principal sometimes at the request of KGB Senior Lieutenant Verbitsky and sometimes at the request of Police Captain Semyonov Verbitsky or Se y nov took hem away for interrogations where they ' ere all aske1 s1m1lar questions Do you· go to ·church Do you listen _to Racho Vatican broadcasts The boys were also asked to explain why they visited Viktoras Petkus In the police station Captain Semyonov shouted at the boys lacing his speech with obscenities In the KGB Senior Lieutenant Verbitsky 36 was polite But both Semyonov and Verbitsky threatened tha he boys would not be admitted to college unless they gave comprom1smg depositions against Petkus They even frightened one boy Bogushes by threatening to send him to a reform school The boys declined to give false testimony and declared that they would not stop going to church When the boys declined and then showed up at school after the summer holidays they were told that they had been expelled but neither they nor their parents could get anyone to show them the decision of the faculty council Document 15 was compiled on the basis of all these conversations It states There are grounds to believe that this expulsion was conducted by order of the KGB In concluding I shall explain how our group circulated its documents At first we typed 35 copies of each document We have no other way of reproducing materials w·e sent these copies by registered mail return receipt requested one copy to Leonid Brezhnev's chancellery and the other copies to the appropriate embassies in Moscow We followed this procedure for our first six documents But we received only six return receipts-all from Brezhnev's chancellery The other 224 envelopes never reached their addresses So we stopped using the Soviet post for sending mail to the embassies and started investigating the possibility of passing on our materials through persons with access to the ambassadors of the Helsinki Conference states ·we succeeded in transmitting our documents to the Governments of the United States Great Britain Canada and the Federal Republic of Germany e did not send them by mail but our method of transmittal violated no Soviet law vVe also forwarded our documents by means of other than the Soviet mail to public organizations of the lielsinki Conference countries To Amnesty International we sent information on arrests on confinements in prison psychiatric hospitals for political or other beliefs and on conditions of detention of prisoners of conscience To the World Council of Churches we sent materials on persecutions for religious beliefts To Jewish organizations we sept documents on the Jewish movement for emigration to Israel and so on The Helsinki Groups have become the organizational centers and the voice of the movement to defend human rights in the U S S R The members of these Groups and their sympathizers are striving toward one· goal only the honest fulfillment of the commitments the Soviet authorities made on human rights-undertakings they gave in the presence of representatives of all the countries who signed the Final Act Therefore the support and defense of the members of the_ Hel inki Groups i t e direct responsibility of the governments wluch signed the Helsmk1 agteement and the moral duty of all the · citizens of these countries Based on all of this I as representative of the Moscow Helsinki Group abroad will press to make the release of the arrested i'nembers of the Helsinki Groups the foremost human rights issue at Belgrade vVe must realize that without their release any human rights agreement reached by the Soviet Union will be simply a worthless scrap of paper ' · · · · · v 37 The Helsinki Groups are continuing their activities despite these arrests Two new members have joined the Moscow Group Dr Naum Meiman and Yuri Mnyukh and one new member J etr Vms t e lJlrrainian Group The r rking Committee to Investigate th 1 1suse of Psychiatry for Political Purposes has also been funct10nmg since January under the auspices of the Moscow Group A new Helsinki Group was formed in Armenia in April The most recent document of the Helsinki Groups received in the vest is dated June 1 And the group in Moscow released it on June 1 through Mr Sakharov But now Lidia Voronina sitting next to me will read some extracts from the document Mr F ASCELL Miss Voronina Miss VoRONINA This is a very important document and I will not read the full document but just some of it In the summary documents of June 1 members of the Group answer three questions First is the Soviet Government fulfilling the obligations to human rights set out in the Final Act Second what influence has the Final Act had on human rights in the U S S R and the countries of Eastern Europe Third what is the outlook for the Belgrade Conference The first question is answered in ·the negative The group declares that there is no freedom of emigration no freedom to choose one's place of residence and no freedom to exchange information in effect no freedom of the press In the U S S R the violation of the freedoms is the norm reinforced both by unwritten tradition and written governmental regulations And it would have been naive to expect a nd unrealistic to demand that the situation of human rights in the U S S R change on the day after the signing of the Final Act But it was possible and proper to expect that the situation would improve at least slowly and gradually The Soviet Government could at least have displayed some intention to improve the situation in regard to human rights Now I want to ask you to excuse me for my very bad English and I ask Mr Kline to continue Mr KLINE continuing The report mentions the violations of human rights already set out in documents the Group has issued and stresses The clea rest evidence of violation of the Helsinki accords is the repression set in motion against the Groups to Promote the Observance of the Helsinki Agreements in Moscow in the Ukraine and in Georgia · On the second question the members of the Group consider that the Helsinki accords have had a positive influence on human rights in the U S R and East rn Europe The signing of the Final Act gave c1t1zens of those signatory states grounds to demand that their own governments respect fundamental human rights It also gave them reason to ount on the support of ' Vestern public opinion and government officials since the human rights issue had been linked to the security of 35 countries in Europe and North America and to recognition of the inviolability of Europe's frontiers The historic significance of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe lies in the fact that for the first time respect for human rights was declared to be a necessary element of interstate relations designed 38 to preserve peace and develop cooperation This idea lies at the very heart of the Helsinki accords No matter how successfully this idea may have been implemented or what its effect has been up till now we believe that i t has become a permanent issue in international politics This represents a giant step forward for mankind on the road toward securing individual liberties and toward collec tive security Finally in assessing the prospects for Belgrade the members of the Group start from the conviction that the Soviet Union has not made a good faith effort to honor its Helsinki obligations Yet in all probability it will be the Soviet representatives at Belgrade who claim that the U S S R has implemented the Final AcL while the ·west has not This argument is made easier by the fact that the Final Act lacks formal criteria for observation of the human rights commitments Because of the absence of these criteria even the vVestern representatives if they so choose could pretend to be 'almost satisfied' with the state of affairs and could express the hope that 'isolated incidents of violations of the human rights guarantees would quickly be corrected vVe consider that it would be pure hypocrisy to take such a position in the face of the obvious truth To do so would do irreparable injury to the cause of human rights as well as to European securit_v It would simply facilitate the tlagrant violation of the Helsinki pledges and turn the Final Act into a laughing stock At the same time the members of the group hold that by recognizing the foll overt Soviet violation of its human rights obligations the 1V-est will not necessarily provoke the co11apse of the He sinki idea They do not advocate that the West repudiate the Helsinki accords because of the violations committed by the East since to do so would aggravate international tension increase arms spending and diminish the chances for a stable peace and genuine international cooperation · But under no circumstances can there be a retreat on the human rights issue That would be an enormous blow to human rights not only in the U S S R and the countries of Eastern Europe but also in the developing world Politically any kind of 'security and cooperation' achieved at such a cost would be illusory · In the opinion of the members of the Moscow Group to Promote Observance of the Helsinki Agreements in the U S S R -The only way out of this impasse is to establish· agreed criteria for the ernluation of the facts But if the Soviet Union refuses to accept concrete measurable criteria by which human rights implementation can he measured then its action would be a unilateral demolition of the Helsinki Agreement Arguments about fulfillment of the human rights ol ligations that were assumed center primarily on two concepts 'interests of state' and 'interference in internal affairs ' Therefore the permissible limitations of individual liberties in the name of national security and the specific actions of other countries with respect to human rights which would constitute interference in another state's internal affairs should be-spelled out Since Soviet authorities now look upon any exchanges of information not ini iated by them as contrary to their state interests the members of the Group propose first of all that agreement be reached on criteria for the dissemination of information It is essential to establish a list of categories of information which cannot be considered state secrets and can consequently be freely disseminated In particular it is essential to a -rree that there can be a free flow of information about court proceedings and prison conditions Moreover there should be specific agreement on questions of emigration The 39 existence of verifiable criteria for implementation of the Final Act implies as well the creation of international bodies to collect and analyze pertinent information on implementation In conclusion the Moscow Group declares that no matter what international criteria are adopted it is clear that it is impermissible to imprison anyone for seeking to fulfill international accords For that reason the very first step in discnssing any aspact of human rights has to be the immediate liberation of all arrested members of the Helsinki Groups Thank you foi · your patience The summary document of June 1 foll mys THE PUBLIC GROUP TO PROMOTE OBSERVANCE OF THE HELSINKI AGREEMENTS IN THE U S S R A PRE-BELGRADE SUMMARY The Public Group to Promote Observance of the Helsinki Agreements in the USSR was formed in May 197 at the initiative and under the leadership of Professor Yuri Orlov According to the statement on its formation ' l 'he aim of the Group is to promote observance of the humanitarian provisions of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe The Group hope that its information will be taken into account at all official meetings which are provided for in the Final Act under the point Follow-up to the Conference The members of the Group to Promote base their activity on the con iction that humanitarian issues and access to information have a direct relationship rto the problem of international security We appeal to the citizens of other participating States of the Helsinki Conference to form their own national Groups to Promote which would assist in the full implementation of the Helsinki Agreements on the part of rthe governments of their countries In the course of its existence the Group to Promote has issued 22 documents and more than 40 separate statements among them an evaluation of the resu1ts of the first year after the signing of the Helsinki Agrement An Evaluation of the Influence of the Helsinki Agreements as They Relaite to Human Rights in the USSR July 22 1976 All these materials have been given to correspondents of western· information agencies and sent to the governments of a number of States participating in the Helsinki Agreemeent We hope that these Group to Promote materials will be studied and discussed at the Belgrade Conference This document is not a systematic summary of Group to Promote materials it is an evaluation of the results achieved over the first two years of the Helsinki Agreement and the Agreement's prospects compiled on the basis of Group materials Our goal was to answer the following three questions Is the USSR observing ithe humanitarian articles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe ·what influence ha e the Helsinki Agreements had on human rights in the USSR and countries of Eastern Europe What is the outlook for the Belgrade Conference' I Is the Soviet government observing the human rights provisions outUned in · the Finai Actf In the section of the Final Act entitled Questions relating to Security in Europe within the Declara tion on Principles Guiding Relations between Participating States we find Principle VII in which the participating States commit themselves to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms Here in part rthe final Act states · The participating States recognize the universal significance of human rights and fundamental freedoms respect for which is an essential factor for the peace justice and well-being necessary to ensure the development of friendly relations and cooperation among themselves as among all States With this provision respect for fundamental human rights is included among the obligations accepted by the participating States with the goal of insuring cooperation and security in Europe The last paragraph of Principle VII leaves 40 no doubt that human rights aud lmsic freedoms in the Final Act are understood to have the same scope as they do in the generally recognized fundamental documents on human rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the U N and Int rnational Covenants on Human Rights In the section Cooperation in Humanitarian and other Fields the Final Act contains a series of provisions dealing with 111 man contacts and the exchange of information which are also related to human rights and which if honestly fulfilled necessarily include respect for human rights It is generally recognized that when the Final Act was signed on August 1 1975 violation of fundamental human rig 1ts in the U S S R was not limited to separate exceptional incidents but actually represented the norm reinforced liy unwritten traditions and written governmental regulations It is sufficient to set forth three ohvious instances of continuing violations 1 In the' Soviet Union there is no freedom to leave the country Even for a tourist excursion auroad character references must JJe procured from one's place of employment these are not issued every time they are requested and always issued under the strict control of Party agencies The citizens of the U S S R are prisoners of their own g n-ernment 2 In the Soviet Union there is no freedom to choose one's place of residence the registration system 3 In the Soviet Union there is no freedom to exchange information no freedom of the press This is evident from the fact that in the country nothing is or can lie printed independent of governmental and Party control It would have been riaive to expect and unrealistic to demand that the situation change the day after the Final Act was signed But it was possible and proper to expect that the situation would improve albeit gradually and slowly The Soviet government could ham at least displayed some intention to improve the human rights situation Nonetheless this did not occur The results a year after the Helsinki Conference were summarized in a Group to Promote report in the following words The Soviet government does not intend to fulfill its international obligations in hnman rights As before many hundreds of political prisoners-people sentenced merely for political ethical or religious beliefs or for attempts to provide the public with independent information-are languishing in prisons and camps In some respects the conditions of their confinement have become more brutal over the years The practice· of psychiatric repression has ueen neither condemned nor curtailed Both in the question of free emigration and in the more particular question of retinificatioil of fa1hilies there have been no changes for the better The number of refuseniks known to us has even grown over the year · All forms o'f independent information are persecuted With even greater assurance we can repeat our statement 2 years after the Helsinki Conference The materials of the Group 'to Promote indicate the numerous violations of human rights vc would first of all like to call attention to the following examples · 1 The denial of· the right to emigrate and the reunification of families cf Group Documents No 11-14 We note in particular the obstacles set before a large group of Pentecostalists and Baptists over a thousand individnals who have conectively stated their desire to emigrate Document No 20 This mass demand for freedom of emigration by Pentecostalists also testifies to the violation of another basic personal freedom-the freedom of religion-since the Pentecostalists have documented their demand with convincing descriptions of gross violations of this right also see Report on the 'l'rip to Pentecostalist Communities December 1 1977 · In addition we note the struggle for the right of emigration by So ·iet Germans Documentyo ' 2 and Tews Relative to the reunification of families we can refer to Document No 4 which contains a list of separated families making efforts to reunite Document 4 lists only the most dramatic cases of separated close relatives aiid is far from complete In the meantime the number o persons 1mhlicly stating their desire to leave the Soviet Union forever or temporarily is steadily growing They are very often refused In many cases they become victims of repressions and are subjected to loss of employment confinement in PSJ Chiatric hospitals arrests on trumped-up charges etc 41 This we can judge by the growing number of statements sent directly to the Group to Promote or through the Group to the Heads of State who signed the Ifinal Act ·we know however that the vast majority of statements concerning the desire to emigrate the renunciation of citizenship the necessity of leaving the country ten11Jorarily does not reach the Group A very great number of those desiring to emigrate are simply unknown to the Group 'l'he Soviet government consistently reduces the full content of the humanitarian articles of the Final Act to a single point reunification of families Moreover it denies any Soviet violations in this area It would like to impose this position on other governments just as it imposes it on its own citizens In lune of 1976 the director of All-Union OVlR Vladimir Obidin explained that the Soviet agencies responsible for granting permission to leave the U S S R will be strictly guided hy the Ifinal Act of'the Helsinki Conference and will grant visas only for the purpose of reuniting families hut family is defined only as spouses and their unmarried children according to the Marriage and Family Code Refusal for reasons of insufficiently close kinship is becoming as widespread a phenomenon as refusal based on knowledge of state secrets In this manner the authorities are attempting to use the Final Act of the Helsinki Conference to restrict emigration 2 Discrimination on the basis of nationality The lfinal Act of the Helsinki Conference states · The participating Stutes on whose territory national minorities exist will respect the right of persons belonging to such minorities to equality before the law will afford them the full opportunity for the actual enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms and will in this manner protect their legitimate interests in this sphere In the meantime the Crimean Tatars in the U S S R have for many years been waging a fruitless struggle for the right to live in their native Crimea the land from which they were exiled as a result of a monstrous act of genocide in 1944 cf Document No 10 for a detailed description of discrimination against Crimean ·Tatars 'l'he l Ieskhetinns face n similar situation cf Document No 18 January 14 1977 Ifacts related to discrimination against Jews are well known · · · · 3 The violation of the right to exchange information and ideas freely including such exchanges with participating States of the Helsinki Conference Telephones are still being disconnected if individuals carry on unclesirahle conversations-unclesira Jle from the KGB's point of view-in particular with individuals a Jroacl Document No 2 cites 43 names We note that this testifies to the continued and widespread monitoring of telephone calls Letters· and telegrams crossing the Soviet frontier are painstakingly censored and often delayed or withheld As before non-Communist foreign newspapers can be purchased in Mosco v only with luck and great difficulty it is totally impossi Jle to buy informational magazines such us Time and Newsweek Not only has the policy on exchanging information with political prisoners not become more liberal since August 1975 but quite the opposite it has become harsher to an extreme Correspondence with political prisoners and their relatives is detained on the most absurd pretexts for example the censor can discover some hidden meaning in a letter and not even bother to explain what it is Even the political prisoner's state of health is restricted information and cannot be divulged Soviet propaganda and the mass media continue to consider ideas coming from the West carriers of infectious disease ancl drill into Soviet man the idea that it is his duty to prevent their spread Any article printed in the Soviet Union on this topic offers convincing proof of this For example in the massclrculatlon youth-oriented newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda an article entitled Wrong ide Up on May 5 1977 asserts that the bourgeois mass media seek the right to wage psychological war on the territory of the f' Ocialist countries and to interfere in their internal affiairs Resounding calls for ideological disarmament and intrusive demands to open the borders of the socialist world to the so-called 'free flow of information' are all pursuing just this goal states the article But what will free flow bring to our shores The NA'l'O Bulletin Nouvelle Atlantique fully clarifies this issue A free flow of information is the creation of conditions for penetration of Western icleas into socialist countries · In this manner Komsomolsknya Pravda ca ls not for a struggle against Western ideas through opposing ideas which as with any struggle of ideas 42 would only be welcome but for physical barriers against the penetration of Western ideas In this uumner the free flow of idem which appears in quotes in Komsomolskaya Pravda is presented as a conscious fraud with no chance· to exist Komsomolskaya Pravda like all other Soviet news11apers does not express its own opinion but simply reiterates the position adopted by higher governmental and Party bodie8 'l'he reason for this hostility towards the free flow of information is clearly stated by the newspaper it would create conditions for the penetration of Western ideas How is this position compatible with the obliga tiou To promote fuller mutual access by all to the achievements-works experiences and performing arts-in the various fields of culture of their countries assn med ·in the I 'inal Act subsection entitled Access by the governments of the participating States at the ·Helsinki Conference It see1_11s that ' Western· ideas are not part of Soviet ideologists' concept of Western culture · · Official Soviet agencies' practices fully correspond to the theory expounded in propaganda The measures employed against the International Symposium on Jewish Culture can sen e as typical models 'l'his symposium was to have opened on Dec mber 21 197-6 in _Moscow and was to last three days' '111 ere were 55 papers on the agenda of the symposium 14 of which were to be given by foreign guests In response -to this the authorities undedook the following measures · cf Document No 19 1 All foreign scholars invited to the symposium were denied entry visas Even tourists suspected of interest in the symposium were refused entry At least three U S citizens who informed Soviet officials of their interest were expelled from the U S S R · 2 Members of the organizational committee as well as persons associated witb them were subjected to searches and lengthy interrogations All literature in Hebrew and Yiddish right down to dictionaries texts of reports and materials for the symposium were all confiscated · · 3 19 persons had their telephones disconnected 4 J On December 21 members of the organizational committee and the ma jority of individuals slated to present reports were arrested In· the course of the· next three days they were detained either under home arrest or at interrogations 5 In Riga Kishinev Tallin Leningrad and other cities individuals attempting to leavE for the Moscow symposium were detained '4 Repressions against the Helsinki Groups The clearest evidence of violation oj' the Helsinki Agreement is the-repression set in motion against the Groups to Promote Observance of the Helsinki Agreements in Moscow the Ukraine and Georgia From February through April the following people were ·arrested · Three members of the Moscow Group Yuri Orlov leader Aleksandr Ginz burg Anatoly Shcharansky Four members of the Ukrainian Group Mykola Rudenko leader Oleksiy Tykhy Myroslav Marynovych Mykola Matuiievych · · · Three members of the Georgian Group· Zviad Gamsakhurclia leader Merab Kostava Viktor Rtskhiladze Rtskhiladze was soon released for 'health reasons after signing a note stating that he would not leave Tbilisi He was nonetheless subjected to many hours of interrogation Certain individuals close to the Groups to Promote V Barladian I Terelya vere arrested or confined• in psychiatric hospitals Members of the Groups who have not been arrested and individuals in eontact with them are under great pressure and under threat of arrest Even though charges against those arrested have not yet been disclosed there can be no doubt the arrests are directed against the actiyity ·of the Helsinki Groups_ and seek to destroy the Groups In May 1976 immediately- following the creation of the first Helsinki Group headed by Yuri Orlov the authorities attempted to halt the Group's activity On May 27 1976 Yuri Orlov inade the following statement I must note that the continuing persecution of free information is a fundame ntal violation of the spirit and letter of the Final Act of the European Conference ' 'In part this persecution -is now directed against the activity of the Group to Promote Observance of the Helsinki Agreements in the U S S R itself The Group to Promote completely open and positive in the nature of its activity was officiaUy labeled an illegal organization by the authorities-al- a 43 though this sounds mad and also a provocatioual and unticonstitutional organization A huge numl Jer of KGB agents almost ostentatiously follow my every move as well as those of certain other Group members no doubt in anticipation of an arrest warrant One would assume that there is no greater danger for the gornrnmeut than public efforts for the fulfillment of the Helsinki agreements Peaceful struggle for the observance of fundamental personal rights against cruelty for religious and social tolerance and for the free movement of information sets the foundation for trust and peace-a foundation more l' table and long-lasting than one simply based on political endeavors Problems of security -in today's world are inseparable from humanitarian problems This is the obvious point of the humanitarian articles of the Final Act By the verY nature of this issue all peoples and all governments are interested in their fulfillment If then the collecting and relaying of Jnformation on the violation of these articles qualify as state crimes the very basis of the agreements is undermined -they no longer have any real content or inner logic For this reaso1i I am appealing to the governments and parliaments of all countries who participated in the European Conference including the U S S R I request that you take steps to protect the rights of the Group to Promote Ohservance of the Helsinki Agreements to pursue its stated reasonable and useful activity I ask you to protect its members from persecution The cnishing of the Helsinki Groups on the eve of the Belgrade Conference can only be viewed as a demonstrative refusal by the authorities to fulfill their human rights obligations in the future and as proof of their resolution to punish those citizens who convey information about these violations fl The influence of the Helsinki Agreements on hunian rights in the USSR and the countries of Eastern Europe 'l'he preceding section shows that the signing of the Final Act by the Soviet government has not had a direct effect on the human rights situation in the USSR iu the sense that the government has not demonstrated an intention to make those improvements in the situation which might have been expected from the provisions of the Final Act However the signing of the Helsinki agreements has had a definite if indirect influence on the human rights issue in the U S S R and dn the countries of Eastern m urope lfirst of all the signing of the Helsinki agreements by the governments of these Rtates gave citizens grounds to demand that their own governments re pect fundamental human rights It also gave them reason· to count on the support of vestern public opinion and government officials since the human rights issue had been linked to the security of 35 countries in Europe and North America and to the recognition of the inviolability of Europe's frontiers In response the Soviet government and certain other countries of Eastern Europe have intensified repressions against those who sfruggle for human rights Secondly the gross and flagrant violation •of the human rights commitments undertaken by the Soviet Union has evoked widespread indignation in Western conntries and has opened people's eyes to the gravity of the human rights situation in the Socialist countries and to the absence of any sort of progress in this area Ill The 01ttlook for the Belgrade Conference The historic significance of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe lies in the fact that for the first time respect for human rights was declared to be a necessary element for interstate relations designed to preserve peace and develop cooperation This idea lies· at the Yery heart of the Helsinki aecords No matter bow successful thi_s idea has been implement d or _what°its effe ct has been up till ·uow we beli eve that it bas become a perman_ent issue· in international politics This represents a giant step forward for mankin_d on the ·road toward individual liberties and collective security · ' · Addressing ourselves toward the re lization of the concepts put forth on August 1 1975 we note first the non-binding nature of the human rights commitments made by the participating States These coµimitmEmts rei emple declitrations of intent They lack agreed criteria to measure the fulfillment of these intentions This form of agreement presumes the presence of good faith for its fulfillment 44 The events of the past two years ha ·e clearly demonstrated the absence of such good faith on the part of the Soviet government The Belgrade Conference may or may not acknowledge this fact if it does it may either continue attempts to realize the basic idea of the Helsinki Conference or it may abandon such attempts Consequently there are three logical possibilities and in the concluding portion of our report we shall comment on these possibilities 1 In all probability the Soviet representatives at Belgrade will claim that the USSR is implementing the humanitarian articles of the Final Act and that if anywhere human rights are being violated in Western countries The Soviet representatives will e ther denounce the Groups to Promote Observance of the Helsinki Agreements or simply ignore them Beyond that they will no doubt cite various figures testifying to the great and ·possibly growing number of tourist excursions cultural exchanges _foreign books being translated- in the Soviet Union and so on All these statistics of course have no relation to human rights since they refer to projects undertaken at the initiative and under strict control of state agencies These statistics do not testify to human rights but to state rights-and no one has any doubt about the existence of those However due to the absence of formal criteria governing observance of the humanitarian commitments in the Final Act vestern representatives if they so chose could pretend to be pretty well satisfied with the state of affairs and could express the hope that isolated incidents of violations of the humanitarian commitments would be corrected in the near future we·believe that it would be pure hypocrisy to take such a position in the face of the obvious truth To do so would do irreparable injury to the cause of human rights as well as to European security It would simply facilitate the flagrant violation of the Helsinki pledges and turn the Final Act into a laughing stock 2 In acknowledging the total and flagrant violation of the humanitarian articles of the Final Act by the Soviet Union the Western countries may conclude that the idea o linking human rights to international relations bas failed This conclusion allows two logical possibilities both with highly tragic consequences One Western countries may repudiate the Helsinki Agreements since they have not been observed by the opposite side This would aggravate international tension increase military expenditures and diminish he chances for a stable peace and genuine internatTonal cooperation Two Western countries may retreat on the human rights issue by excluding such-points from the Helsinki Agreements either formally or by ignoring them in practice at the same time preserving the remaining articles of the Agreements and specifically the guarantees for the inviolability of frontiers This would be· an enormous blow fo human rights not only in the USSR and the countries of Eastern Europe bnt also in the developing world Politically any kind of security and cooperat on achieved at such a cost would be illusory and would simply result in the demolition of the Helsinski agreement 3 We feel that talk of the collapse of the Helsinki idea is premature and we put our hopes in a third logical possibility-specifically that the Western countries will detail Soviet violations of humanitarian commitments ano will conclude that the only means of preserving the Helsinki Agreement would be the establishment of agreed criteria for evaluating the facts The Soviet government may choose not to recognize the fact of its own violations of its commitments but it will have to recognize that the only way out of an impasse resulting from the presence of two opposing points of view is to establish agreed criteria If the Soviet Union refuses to accept concrete measurable criteria for the evaluation of the facts then its action will have the force of a unilateral destruction of the Helsinki Agreement · No matter w bat the criteria for measuring the implementation of an international iagreement one thing is clear it is impermissible to imprison ianyone for monitoring th at iagreement We feel that Western representatives should pose as a preliminary condition for any discussions at Belgrade the immediate release of all arrested members of the Helsinki Groups As long ias they are imprisoned any discussion of criteria for flulfllling the Helsinki A ments would be ian insulting farce and Ill mockery of reason Disputes about fulfillment of humanitarian commitments center· primaTily on two concepts 'interests of state' nd 'interference in internal ffairs' ' Dherefore the permissible limitations of individual liberties in the name of national security and the specific actions of other countries wtib respect to bumiall' rig hts which would constitute interference in another state's internal affairs should be spelled out The Soviet authorities now look upon iany exchanges of information 45 not initiated by them as contrary to their state interests If the Soviet government refuses to establish criteria to evaluate violations of st 1te interests in the m·ea of human rights this will signify that there is 1a deep and irresolvable contradiction between the observance of hruman rights and Soviet state interests and th at the existing pooctice will continue If obis is the case the Soviet government should not lhave signed the Helsinki Agreement In la similiar vein it stands to reason that if any criticism of one country by another for the violation of human irights or any demand to present pertinent information aTe viewed tas interference in internal affairs such a country should not be a participant in the Helsinki Agreement We would Uke tJo note the following IRS concrete aspects of this problem A definition of state interests should include internation al codifioation of the concept of state secrets a list of categories of information which cannot be considered state secre_ts is e n more important Views on this subject were expressed by Yuri Orlov in a proposal for an international conference on declassification of information which we iattach below Freedom of emigration occupies an especially important position ·among all human rights because of its international aspect An individual desiring to emigoote from a country sooner belongs to mankind as Ill whole thiRn to the citizenry of a given country For this reason mankind as a whole is responsible for him We deem it necessary that every government pledge either to allow the immediate deptartmre of a person wishing to emigriate or to give a concrete response in written form as to the reasons for deLay and the length of time the delay will continue Copies of such responses should be sent to international organizations There is no basis to categorize tJhe dissemin ation of information about court proceedings tand prison conditions as contirary to state interests nor the request for such information by other governments as interference in internal uiffairs The participants in the Helsinki Agreement should give guarantees for the free access of foreign representatives to tall trtal proceedings and places of detention 'I'he thTee eXJllillples we have cited by no m ans fully elucidate the problem In addition to agreements iand obligations assumed by the participating States establishing verifiable criteria for implementation of the Final Act implies as well the creation of intern ational ·bodies tJo collect illnd analyse pertinent information Taking into consideration the limited opportunities at the disposal of the citizens of the USSR and Eastern EuTope the representatives of such bodies should be illble to visit these countries and accept statements from individual citizens 'l'he Soviet Union's violation of the humanilla Tian provision of the Helsinki Agreement creates a difficult situation with respect to relations between countries pa rticipating in this Agreement The future of Europe and the whole world may depend on the resolution of this situation But to ignore the fact of the violations would be the worst possible solution After the arrest of Aleksandr Ginzburg on February 3 1977 Helsinki Group leader Yuri Orlov issued the following statement 1 1 H ing acted in this Willy the Soviet government has plainly dis larded its recent international human rights obligations Are there any gwarantees thrat it will not discard other obligations when the time is right I direct this question to Western governments I direct this question to the Soviet government as well The Soviet government's response to tJhis question is evident-it has thrown Y uri Orlov behind btars Wlhat wiU be the response of the irepresentatives of Western governments when they gather at the Belgrade Conference February 27 1977 Members of the Group to Promote Observance of the Helsinki Agreements in the USSR Elena Bonner Pyotr Grigorenko Malva Landa Naurn Melman Yuri Mn vukh and Vladimir Slepak Members of the Group to Investigate the Misuse of Psychiatry for Political Purposes Vyacheslav Bakhmin Irina Kaplum Aleksandr Podrabinek and Felix Serebrov VALENTIN TUROHIN Ohairman Amnesty International 92-302-77--4 46 APPENDIX PROPOSAL FOR AN INTERNATIONAL O NFERENCE ON DECLASSIH0ATION OF INFORMATION I propose·that Western·governments work out in gene ral terms a project for an international conference on declassifi ati011 of information during the period of preparation for Belgrade This would be a worthwhile development of the Helsinki Agreements in a key direction 'l'he goal of the conference should be an international agreement as to the permissible level of classification of information At the same time an agreement should be reached on follow-up steps to reduce the scorie of classifiable information by stages ·· I feel that at the first stage the classification of information dealing with the following subjects should be forbidden 1 Abject poverty 2 Epidemics and statistics oli disease 3 Statistics on crime 4 Living standards-provision of food clothing housing etc 5 The extent and nature of violations of -international human- ·rights obligations In view of the history of Soviet suppression of free information there should be protection for the right of indiyiduals to publish information f9r purposes of discm i- ion without the threat of criminal prosecution for erroneous information This protection would extend to an agreed list of free unclassified information There should also be agreement that loss of credibility is sufficient punishment for a careless or dishonest source of information believe that this laiit principle at least with respect to point 5 of the above list could be agreed to in Belgrade This proposal develops an idea advanced by Professor Naum Meiman on the need for an international agreement defining the permissible level of classification of scientific information · Y uru _Oniov Lca lcr The G roup To Pron_ otc FEBRUARY 8 1977 Mr F ASCELL Thank you very much Mr Kline And thank you Miss Voronina for the ·recommendations and sug esti ms that yon have gives us and also thank you Mrs Alekseeva for spelling out to 11s the very careful approach made in verification of information This is a very substantial contribution to our interest in this matter and we are deli hted to ha ve what appears to be a very scientific approach to a very difficult problem ' · · In the search· of· Professor Orlov's apartment in Tan nary police took away some 200 pages of documents on what he ca Us The Perse cut ion of Children of Religious Parent in the Ukraine and in -Centra l Asia ·· · · · Can you tell us what those documents reported- Mr KLTN1 Mrs Alekseeva will answer 1Mrs Alekse eva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE rtranslating During a search of Orlm1' s apartment they confiscated the originals of the documents which were used in the Grono's Document No 4 which deaJs with faking children awH from the Baptist believers and turning them over· to the state because the parents were educating them in religious beliefs _That document is in tlrn nossession of the Commission and has been translated I believe rMrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian J Mr KLINE translatingJ They also confiscated during the search a whoJe volume containing signatures of the Meskhetians the Georgian people who want to return to their homeland on the Turkish border •Profess·or Orlov was arrested tn Moscow Feb 10 1977 Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian · Mr KLINE translating But on the basis of that information the Group had prepared Document No 18 which is also in the possession of the Commission _·Mr FASCELL As you know we have published today the reports of the Helsinki Accord Monitors in the Soviet Union volume 2 of the documents of the Public Groups Is the practice of denying parents their parental rights still continuin•g 1 Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating The last·case that I know of took place in Ryazan on February 14 of this year There was a court decision OQpriving parents of their parental rights Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating Since the adoption of the Helsinki accords there have been court decisions depriving parents of parental rights ·But despite these decisions the authorities have often left the children with their parents This is a precarious situation where the child could be taken away at any moment because the court has so decided and delivered a verdict to that effect Mr F ASCELL Is this practice widespread or limited to small and remote towns f frs Alckseev a speaks in Russian Mr KLTNE translating She says R vazan is not such a small town But there have not been such cases in Moscow or Leningrad They a re more prevalent in smaller towns r fiss Voronina speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating Miss Voronina just observes that there have been changes-interesting changes in Soviet policies with respect to deprivation of children Some years ago the Pentecostalists were the chief victims-that is this policy was directed mainly at Pentecostalist children Now their attention has been focused on Baptists cspeciaJly a group called the Initiative Baptists in depriving them of parental rights But it is hard to predict which group might be next It is a changing thing but the practice has persisted for sever al yearsfor a number of years J r F ASCELL At this point I had better ask Mr Buchanan if he has any questions 1 fr BucHANAN Thank you Mr Chairman You mentioned several aspects of repression of religious groups and the formation of a committee because of the number of these cases to zero in on these problems One of our previous witnesses has described persecution of both religious and nationality groups as being subjected to what he called religious genocide or cultural genocide-an effort to stamp out all such diversity in the creation of Soviet man and Soviet woman Would you say that either pertaining to nationality or ethnic groups or religious groups that yon found evidence of this kind of pattern in the policies of your government 1 fMiss Voronina speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating It is not a direct answer to your question hut Miss Voronina says that since she left the country which was in January the group in Moscow has received 10 new documents about 48 religious persecution not only against Pentecostalists and Baptists but persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses and other groups But Miss Voronina says the help from the West and interest from the West is not harmful to these groups-it will not increase Soviet repression directed against religious groups She pleads that the West help with emigration where religious believers have requested it The vVest can also help by focusing attention on problems of religious liberty so that believers will be allowed to practice their religion inside the U S S R She £eels that attention from the vest will help to achieve those ends Miss V oronina speaks in Russian · Mr KLINE translating She is afraid that if interest fades in the West then it could result in the total destruction 0£ those religious sects by the Soviet state which is opposed to them in principle_and now accords them a limited tolerance ·· Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating Mrs AJekseeva is again answering another question but she £eels that the £act that some of the people have been aJlowed to emig1 ate who were rarlier subjected to religious persecution is helpful because the Soviets are afraid of emigration en masse ·and they do not want to permit millions of people to leave Here you are dealing not with Jews or Germans who arr relatively minor nationalities-you are dealing with Russians and Ukrainians Th authorities do not want to be faced with mass appeals for emigration and the £act that a few religious believers have managed to emigrate makes the authorities £ear further demands This might result in some lessening of repression within the Soviet Union in order to encourage these religious individuals a 1d groups to stay in the U S S R rather than to · ask for emigration Mr BucnANAN May I ask about one particular case of a _leader of the dissident Baptists which I understand you testified would bethe group where the deprivation of parents of their children has been prominent in recent years Georgi Vins is the leader of that group and has been in a Siberian prison and is in poor health · ' Ve passed a resolution in Congress last year in both Houses on his behalf calling for his release I wonder if you know anything about that case Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating Georgi Vins is still in the prison camp and from all reports his health is very poor An interesting fact is that his son Peter Vins just a month ago joined the Ukrainian Helsinki ' Vatch Group But there has been no substantive change in Vins' situation he is still in his labor camp Mr F ASCELL Senator Dole Mr DoLE I apologize for missing part of the testimony Thank yon Mr Chafrman I guess the basic question that all of us have is which is the best approach-quiet negotiations which have allowed some dissidents to leave-Bukovsky is probably the most recent example or public pressure letters to Sakharov and others In the opinions of these two ladies which way is the best way to let 49 the Russians know how we feel about dissidence and to bring about the proper results Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating Mrs Alekseeva does not think that one method excludes the other she believes that it is possible to use both methods but since she was a member of the Public Group to Encourage Fulfillment of the Helsinki accords her own feelings speak for themselves- that is her own activity was directed toward public efforts to clarify the facts and public appeals Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating They have no objection in principle to quiet diplomacy as a supplement to public statements particularly in the case of arrests such as the arrests of Orlov and Ginzburg and Shcharansky Sometimes a combination may prove effective whereas one method without the other may not Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating With respect to the Soviet Union Mrs Alekseeva believes that quiet diplomacy can only succeed against a background of a public interest if open and overt public interest is maintained Mr DOLE Based on that response I wonld guess it would be the view of the witnesses that we should insist on a discussion of Soviet violations of the Helsinki Final Act when we go to Belgrade Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating In the document just received which Miss Voronina read from the group's position has been that before there are any discussions about human rights at Belgrade a preliminary conditon should be the release of the arrested members of the Helsinki Vatch Groups I would like to make clear from my prior talks ·with Mrs Alekseeva that the Moscow Group believes that discussions on Baskets I a ncl II-that is on security and economic cooperation should go ahead The release of Yuri Orlov and the other group members is not a precondition to discussions for Baskets I and II But it would be condoning a sham if one proceeded to discuss human rights provisions while members of the group who committed no crime other than trying to encourage the fulfillment of the Helsinki accords are in prison Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating Any declaration no matter how good about human rights will remain a scrap of paper while the people who fought for human rights remain in prison Mr Dorn Then I think Miss Voronina you lmew Anatoly Shcharansky well in Moscow right Miss V ORO NIN A Yes Mr Dorn I believe that you were storing his personal letters from his wife in Israel untp the KGB seized them Based on your knowledge what do you think of the report that he is being charo-ed with treason since the investi ation has not been completed-do y u think the Soviet authorities will actually proceed ·ith such a charge' fiss Voronina speaks in Russian 1 fr KLINE translating Miss Voronina £eels that the charges which 50 have been reported against Shcharansky are totally false and are provocative in their nature Miss Voronina speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating She feels that the only crime that Shcharansky is guilty of is one which the Soviet Union may consider to be a crime against the state It is that Shcharnnsky spoke the truth and what is worse he spoke it in English He spoke English very well and acted as an interpreter for many of the dissidents Mr DoLE Does she think that they will proceed with that charge Miss Voronina speaks in Russian Mr KuNE ftranslating The basis for reporting that charge is a letter received by Shcharansky's mother from a Soviet official · There have been precedents where the preliminary charge has been changed-changed at the time of conrt proceedings That happened in the case of General Grigorenko and in the ctise of Vyacheslav Igrunov in Odessa rn it is not certain that that will be the charge in court Miss Voronina speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating Miss Voronimt thinks that the result of that trial will depend in great measure on the degree of support ho receives from people here Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating Mrs Alekseeva points out that in the case of General Grigorenko the charges were increased when his case came to court-they vere made more severe-whereas in the case of Igrunov the charges when he came to court were reduced 1Vhat happens depends a great deal on the pressure from the 1Vest and vVestcm reaction In the case of Shcharansky it is hard to see them increasing theseverity of the charges against him Mr DoLE The degree of aid she speaks of is public pressure Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating She is speaking of public pressure and any other means that you or anyone else can think of to help Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating She feels that there is some possibility that silent dip1omacy can help but only if it is backed up by very strong public outcry and pressures Miss Voronina speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating Miss Voronina would like to point out that the type of information Shcharansky collected is well explained b v the report o f Mrs Alekseeva which she read to you-that it was all open information and he did it all openly He was very effective in collecting information One of Shcharanskfs crimes in Soviet eyes was that he was never afraid of anything-he was never afraid because he knew he had never done anything criminal and the authorities do not like people who are not afraid Miss Voronina speaks in Russian Mr KLINJ translating Mr Shcharansky was under constant surveillance by the Soviet authorities day and night A prerequisite to be a spy or at least a successful one is to be able to do things secretly Everything that Mr Shcharansky did transpired under the unwavering gaze of the Soviet authorities so it is hardly credible that he could have been engaged in any kind of spying activity 51 Miss Voronina speaks in Russian J Mr KLINE translating She is just describing that when she met with Shcharansky they were followed by two cars each with four men in it who openly were holding hearing devices or bugs-you know like walkie-talkies On the street there were other people____ one on each si le of them-who 1Yere v ithin earshot TVonld it be possible in such circumstances to carry on espionage activities Mr FRIENDLY There were four people across the street holding recorders Mr KLINE Yes four people on the other side holding recorders Mr FAS'CELL Mrs Fenwick Mrs FENWICK Thank you Mr Chairman I have several questions First just out of curiosity I note on page 4 that various religious groups came to meet with the committee There is no mention of Jewish groups Do they not come to you fMrs Alekseeva sp_eaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating Jewish groups did come but No 1 the Jewish groups have their own contacts with the West and their own method of getting the attention of ·western correspondents The Jewish group did make some contacts with the Helsinki Watch Group Shcharansky a Jewish activist is a member of the Helsinki Watch Group The reason that Mrs Alekseeva stresses the people from the deep provinces and the Christian Groups and Russians and Ukrainians is because that was such an unexpected and unusual phenomenon in the Soviet Union The Jewish problem was already fairly well known but the Group members themselves were amazed at the distances traveled by some of these other people Mrs FENWICK That is my next question I am interested in what Madam Alekseeva called the khodoki How did they know where to come Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating The fact that the group existed and what its functions were they heard by radio When these people came the Group members asked how they had learned of the groups existence They replied-by radio Voice of America BBC and so on They would ask these people and most of them would answer sort of casuall_J we heard it on the radio _Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating Over the radio they broadcast the name of the group and even the name of Doctor Orlov ·as director and names of members but they did not broadcast addresses Even so people found them and in the case of the taxi driver Vladimir Pavlov from Maikop he told the group how he found their address Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating Pavlov came to Moscow He went to one of Moscow's main streets Gorky Street and he stopped several· welldressed people deciding that if they were well-dressed and were wearing a hat then they were members of the intelligentsia I Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating And he stopped them and said Can you give me the address of Sakharov or Orlov Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian 52 Mr KLINE translating Well people that he stopped also listened to foreign radio and knew what he was talking about rMrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating One of the people took him in a taxi to an acquaintance of his-Pavlov did not even know his name-and that acquaintance gave him the address of Yuri Orlov Mrs FENWICK I see I have one or two more questions One is about the Solzhenitsyn fund for the families of prisoners How is that administered-have either of these ladies ever taken part in this How does it help the families of political prisoners Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating On the very eve of Ginzburg's arrest when he knew that he was about to be arrested he felt that he was about to be arrested he called a press conference in February and gave some of the details of his admimstration of the fund rMrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr CLINE translating Ginzburg said that in the 3 years that he had been giving help to families of prisoners he had distributed approximately $200 000 which he had receive l from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and an additional $70 000-rubles I should say-an additional 70 000 rubles which had been collected in Russia itself ' Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating And hat each year in that 3-year period approximately 600 families of political prisoners had received some support from the fund 1 Mrs FENWICK I suppose they lose their jobs and the fund helps them to live · Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating There is the problem you mention-some families lose their jobs Very often the wife is left alone with small children and either has no income or a very small income so that it needs a supplement · Mrs FENWICK How did these ladies get out Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian · Mr KLINE transl afing Mrs Alekseeva was under pressure from the KGB to go They were pressing her rather hard-they were more anxious for her to leave then she was to leave herself They wanted her out · Can I mention something Mrs FENWICK Yes Mr KLINE There has been one thing for which the Soviet authorities deserve compliment-there has been a reluctance to arrest women although they have not been excluded Professor Orlov was arrested in Mrs Alekseeva's house and at the time the police said you too and you know why we are here It was clear to Mrs Alekseev a that the choice was to go west or go to jail • r frs FENWICK What role did Madam Alekseeva have or ·play in this fund 1 Miss Voronina speaks in Russian ' Mr KLINE trans a ting Lidia Voronina ·would like to say that 3 years ago her husband was permitted to emigrate to Israel She asked to emigrate with him She was denied that permission for 3 53 years After she made her trip to visit the Pentecostal communities and he_ day after there had been a search in her house she was given perm1ss10n to leave Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating Mrs Alekseeva was occupied with collecting money for prisoners' families before the formation of that fnnd from 1968 to 1972 There was no help from outside and her job or her responsibility was to gather money from Soviet citizens Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating In those yea rs in the institutes and factories where dissidents worked there were a lot of people who sympathized with them even though they were not open dissidents The disside_nts would talk quietly to people whom they knew were sympathetic and say if you do not want to do anything else you can give 1 ruble or 5 rubles And every 2 weeks when employees received their paychecks they would collect maybe $1 or $5 from these sympathizers The situa tion was somewhat different then and in a way better because not only could one provide help to the prisoners' families but in those years you could still send parcels-food parcels and other parcels to the prisoners themselves So some of this money was spent to buy food parcels and other things for the prisoners -frs FENWICK ·When did that stop Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE transl a ting Mrs Alekseeva collected between GOO and 900 rubles a month which at that time wa_s equivalent of about $700 Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian fr KLrnE translating Instructions for internal use were adopted ih November 1972 which ended the right to send ·food parcels to prisoners But Mrs Alekseeva wants to tell ·about the first time when Ginzbnrg was in prison In addition to sending food bouillon cubes 1 medicine and other things to prisoners they sometimes put money inside the packages of dehydrated soup or food because there is some use 'for money even inside the camp Ginzburg told Mrs Alekseeva that the first time they received such a package with money hidden inside a soup envelope they almost cooked it They nearly destroyed it because they did not ha ve any idea that the money was there Later they learned to look for money in the parcels Mrs FENWICK I have one final question which cannot be answered I suppose And that is where do you get the courage to act in defiance of such a regime-to inspect the Pentecostalists and their children to collect £or those who are in trouble-where does such courage come from We are lost in admiration · fMrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating She says being a dissident lo oks different here than there-more formidable than it does from there There are many people who want to remain self-respecting people Andi£ you want to maintain self-respect these are the thin s you do From inside it does not appear as quite as courageous maybe as-- · Mrs FENWICK I understand Mr KLINE That is what she is saying Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian 54 Mr KLINE translating Mrs Alekseeva believes or hopes that any self-respecting citizen or person from here who found himself in those conditions i£ he wanted to remain self-respecting would act exactly the same way · · Mrs FENWICK You know what Archibald Cox said I 1 'llow what I admire I know wh l t I hope I would do Mr F ASCELL Miss V oronina wants to speak Miss Voronina speaks in Russian · Mr KLINE translating You would understand better i£ you yonrself had visited a Pmitecostal community These are very harcl-wo1l ing simple Russians The most remarkable thing about them which is not usual for Russians is that they do not drink They have large families which is also remarkable in these days They are just simple God-fearing people and you have to sympathize with them and help them in their work Mr F ASCELL Mr Buchanan Mr BUCHANAN Thank you Mr Chairman I would have to say that I like my colleague am lost in admiration for your courage and work I£ I were an historian writing of this era I probably would not even give a footnote to many of the political figures whether in our Government or in your government but I must say that people like those 0£ your Group would be right toward the top 0£ the list of the heroes 0£ our time Miss VoRONINA Thank you very much Mr KLINE They both thank you -and yon have embarrased them l fr BUCHANAN You mentioned both in your formal stateme11t and in your answers to questions the role of broadcasting and Radio Liberty specifically and the Voice of America which you describe as two of the most popular foreign radio opemtions in the Soviet Union I wonder how you would evaluate these stations as to their listenership and their programing and how you would rate them in importance in perpetuating this human rights movement in the Soviet Union Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian M r KLINE translating Thank you for your kind words-that goes back to your earlier statement They ·are not politicians but they very much need the help of 'Politicians to accomplish their aims rMrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating The human rights movement is not ·a political movement It is hard to find any direct or exact comparison in American life but Mrs Alekseeva believes that the moral fervor and intensity can ·best be compared to perhaps the civil rights movement of America which coincided to some extent with their own movement in the Soviet Union in time · rMrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian · · Mr KLINE translating Professor Orlov is a physicist He made personal surveys and calculations and he estimates that one-fifth of the adult population in the Soviet Union listens to foreign· radio broadcasts rMrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating Foreign ra-dio is the only widespread source of what you might call counterinformation or unofficial mformation in the Soviet Union It·is their primary source Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian 55 Mr KLINE translating And you have to understand since it is the only source not only dissidents and not only those who sym pathize with dissidents but anybody who is interested in public affairs and world affairs including officials tend to listen to foreign radios because it is their only source of news and much that is happening Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian · · l fr KLINE translating Many of the people who listen have a thirst for true information since Soviet information is· distorted or false in many cases Even if people do not agree with the aims of the stations even if they look on them as hostile stations people will listen just to hear the information that is contained in their broadcasts to give them some view of the outside world Mrs Alckseeva speaks in Russian · Mr · KLINE translating Foreign radio broadcasts have become necessary just for civil life-and not just for the dissidents Foreign broadcasts have become a normal part and an important part of the Soviet·scene for anyone who is interested and not just intellectuals Quite a few ordinary people workers and so on listen too It is a form of both entertainment and information Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating But that raises some questions about how much more the radios could do than they are already doing and because of the radios' importance Mrs Alekseeva has firm views on that subject Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating Why do the radios pay so little attention and sq infrequently cite the Chronicle of Current Events which is the hasic information journal of the •Soviet movement for human rights That is not the journal that is published here but the one that is compiled in Moscow by the dissidents themselves Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE_ translating When they raised this question with Western journalists and correspondents they always said Well you know the news is rather out-of-date by the time it gets to the West It has to go through channels and be typed but Mrs Alekseeva points out that it m a' be old news in the ·west but to the Soviets it is very important Even though an event happened a month ago it is news to them and that is what they want to hear So she wishes there were more broadcasts r i fiss V oronina speaks in Russian l Mr KLINE translating Yon might-Miss Voronina says yoti might think that the Pentecostalists who are religious people would not listen to the radio but they listen very avidly It has almost become it part of their religious ritual-the same as saying their prayers Miss Voronina was amazed how attentively they listened to for eign radio rJ fiss Voronina speaks in Russian l Mr KLIJIB translatin When Pentecostalists would hear by radio nl out the actions of Sakhnrov or Orlov or the U S Government or tlw Helsinki Commission after that they would fall on their knees and pray becmise they felt that it was due to the providence of God that such people and such institutions exist and they would thank God for these things · Mr BUCHANAN Thank you Mr Chairman 56 • Mr FASCELL I have two quick questions on which I would like to get the opinion of both ladies American journalists and others have recently expressed the opinion that the human rights movement in the Soviet Union is dead Is that an accurate assessment from their viewpoint Miss VoRONINA No Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian-a lengthy response Mr KLINE translating The-Mr F ASCELL I think that she said it is not true Mr KLINE continuing translation The first answer is that it is comp etely not true In the past there have been waves of harsh repress10n alternating with waves of less repression During a wave of harsh repression there has usually been some falling away from the movement People have left the movement out of fear or for some other reason But what most distinguishes the current wave of repression is that people have not abandoned the movement The Helsinki groups have added new members New people have added their signatures to petitions Even though there· has been an intensification of repression it has not at all diminished the interest and if anything it seems to have heightened it In Mrs Alekseeva's long-term judgment the movement will exist as long as those problems exist which the movement is trying to deal with the problems of freedom of information freedom of speech and so on must be solved in Soviet society Until they can be solved there will always be a movement in defense of those'civil freedoms Mr F ASCELL Miss V oronina Miss Y oronina speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translat i ng Mrs Alekseeva knows more about the history of the movement but Miss Voronina speaks for the younger generation of which she is a representative herself Miss Voronina speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating She can from her own experience bear witness to the fact that there are a great many potential dissidents among her generation 1Vhen her fellow students or co-workers at the institute found out about Miss Voronina's activities they did not ask her why she engaged in such hopeless activities-why she bothered about huinan rights Their immediate reaction was to justify themselves as to why they themselves were not taking part in these activities and why they were not yet involved in the movement This need for self-justification indicates that they understand the importance of the human rights movement Mr F ASCELL One final question I would like each of the ladies to comment on what their opinion is as to why the Soviet Union picked this particular time on the eve of the Belgrade Conference when as far as I know everybody· else is trying to put on their best suit to be particularly harsh and repressive · rMrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian J Mr KLINE translating She believes it is a test of nerves of those j Overnments who signed the Helsinki Agreement Usually i1 1 the pa t Western governments have made concessions when faced with Soviet complaints Mrs Alekseeva 'prays to God that this time the governments will ·stand firm 'and defend hunian rights She thinks that in essence it is a deliberate test o_f erv of the we t rn governm_en 9' 57 Mr FASCELL Miss Voronina Miss V oronina speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating The Soviet Union wants human rights only on paper and not for the people Their attitude towards the human rights of the individual is the same as their attitude towards the national rights of the Union Republics which they created and which are in theory independent but which are under the strict control of the central government Just as their promise of land to the peasants which was made during the revolution was never fulfilled so the Soviet Union is willing to make promises about human rights but is very reluctant to fulfill them Mr FASCELL Does she agree that this particular activity now on the eve of Belgrade by the Soviet Union is a test of strength or is there some other reason Miss Voronina speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating I think that Miss Voronina does not want to answer directly to your question probably because she feels that she does not know or is not qualified to respond But regardless of the answer Miss Voronina's point is that the progressive forces of mankind and the people who care should persist in defending human rights regardless of the Soviet motives 'We should know what we want to do which is to insist on fulfillment of human rights Mr F ASCELL I just was wondering whether there was some nebulous thought process in the Soviet mind that I did not understand Mrs Alekseeva speaks in Russian Mr KLINE translating Mrs Alekseeva feels that the Soviet Government is not acting out of self-confidence-it is not the way a selfconfident government would behave They are acting more out of weakness and fear Their reaction to their own nervousness is to try to frighten the governments who are coming to Belgrade to negotiate with them Mr F ASCEL I felt there has been an overreaction on the part of the Soviet Government myself and that they are acting out of fear but I wanted to hear it from somebody who lived there and understands the Soviets Let me thank you Mr Kline very much and both of you ladies Your testimony has been extremely valuable 1 Ve admire you and your courage and the people you represent vVe will hope and work for the best and t _to jom you in the very fine things that you have done The Comm1ss10n stands adjourned The next Commission hearinO' is at 2 p m Monday June 6 1977 in room 2172 Rayburn Hous Office Building at which time we will hear the Secretary of State vV hereQpon at 1 15 p m the hearing ·was concluded ' __ APPENDIX June 3 1977 __ voRKINo Co1nnss10N uoa THE INVESTIGATION oF THE ABUSE OF PSYCHIATRY FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES APPEAL TO WORLD PUBLIC OPIXIOX FEBRUARY 15 1077 Individual dramatic cases of psychiatric persecution attract world pnhlic attention However there are many prisoners of conscience in Soviet psychiatric hospitals whose fute is known about neither at home nor abroad Today the Commission directs the attention of those who cherish the ideals of freedom and humanism to the tragic rate and difficult circumstances of Yury Belov who is interned in the Krasnoyarsk Regional Psychiatric Hospital Yury Sergeyevich Belov was born in 1941 He is a Christian a Catholic ln 1058 he became a student at the Philological Faculty of Leningrad State University In 1960 he was expelled from the Uni rnrsity for belonging to Y Sosnovsky's anti-Soviet group Under the psuedonym Yury Ark he worked with Radio Liberty on the reports Out of 3 Stalinists 5 Leninists Apes communism and parasites'' and other broadcasts In 1961 he was called up for military servke and completed the regimental course While serving in the army he was accused of participation in the Shlyauters affair an attempt ·by a group of soldiers to leave the USSR via Finland and Sweden In 1961 he underwent a foremiic psychiatric examinatio11 at the Leningrad l Iilitary Medical Academy and was diagnosed as lun-ing a psychopathic personality The case against Belov was dropped a·nd he· was dismissed from the army In 1962 he was deprived of his residence permit and banished from Leningrad as an anti-social element He entered the Faculty of Historical Philology at the Pedagogical Institute in Kallningrad formerly Konigsberg studied esperanto and in 1963 took part in an esperanto congress in Cracow Poland There he obtained a transit visa to the FRG and· at an esperanto conference in Munich he made a SJ eech in which he criticised the policy of the Soviet leadership After his return to the Soviet Union he was attacked in the Soviet press · in 1964 he was expelled from the Institute and subsequently arrested He was charged under Article 70 of the RSFSR Criminal Code anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda He wns sentenced to 3 years' deprivation of liberty which he served in the Mordovian camps and 2 years exile which he began in Ust-Abakan in Siberia In camp he went on hunger strikes 5 times and was placed in a punishment isolation cell on 15 occasions · Once in exile he composed a report on the subject of the organized crimes against political prisoners and sent it to the UN Commission on Human Rights His Report from the Darkness was published in the FRG In 1868 as a result of the treacherous provocative activity of an employee of the W German i·adio station Deutsche Welle German Fuchs the organs of the KGB discovered the identity of the author of Report from the Darkness and Yury Belov was once again arrested He spent over a year in an investiga tion prison awaiting trial He was charged under the same Article 70 of the RSFSR Criminal Code and sentenced to 5 years' deprivation of liherty in a special regime camp He served his new sentence in the Mordovian camps and in Vladimir Prison Dming a search of his cell in Vladimir prison he wns found to be in possession of anti-Soviet mate1ial and he was again charged with setting up an antiSo iet organization and with betraying the fatherland Articles 70-2 72 and G4 of the RSFSR Criminal Code He was given a psychiatric examination the examining doctors were Ilinsky Taltse Turova at the Serbsky Institute of Forensic Psychiatry in Moscow and diagnosed as suffering from pathological 59 60 development in a psychopathic personality By a court order Yury Belov was sent for compulsory treatment From May 30 1972 he has been undergoing the most severe punishment in the Sychovka Special Psychiatric Hospital of the l fVD USSR where he has been subjected to the effects of neuroleptic drugs On January 7 1976 Belov was transferred to the Smolensk Special Psychiatric Hospital and on September 3 to the Krasnoyarsk regional ordinary psychiatric hospital where he is at the present time After nine years of isloation from the outside world Belov was at last permitted a visit On January 7 1977 Aleksandr PodralJinek visited him in the hospital After Podrabinek's departure on January 19 Belov was suddenly transferred to a regime of strict isolation and compulsory treatment with neuroleptic drugs was started There were no medical grounds as far as we know for these measures The Commission possesses information which shows that the strict measures of confinement and the treatment which is having disastrous effects on Belov's health were a direct consequence of his meeting with Podrabinek · The Commission is of the opinion that the fact that someone visited Belov and gave him warm clothing food and a transitor radio cannot serve as grounds for taking such measures The Hospital administration does not reply to our telephone queries about Yury Belov's condition nor has a reply been received to Aleksandr Podrabinek's open letter to the chief doctor Boris Spirldonovich Gladkikh Since approaching the administration brings no results THE COMMISSION CALLS ON ALL PEOPLE OE' GOOD WILL TO RAISE THEIR VOICES IN DEFENCE OF BELOV ''Aleksandr Podrabinek's open letter to the chief doctor of the Krasnoyarsk Psychiatric Hospital the address of the hospital the names of the doctors and their telephone numbers in the hospital are attached to this document Address _of _the Hospital SSSR RSFSR Krasnoyarksy kray Nizhne Ingashy raion Poselok Poima-Tiny Krasnoyarskaya Krayevaya Psikhiatricheskaya Bolnitsa Chief Doctor -Boris Spiridonovich Gladkikh 1 el-1-45 Deputy chief doctor in the medical department Tamara Aleksandrovna Kuzmina tel-1-56 Head of the first section where Belov is Anatoly Demyanovich Odezhkin tel-1-16 Doctor in charge of Belov Vladimir Vasilievicb Myasnikov tel-1-16 To the Chief Doctor of the Krasnoyarsk Regional Psychiatric Hospital Boris Spiridonovicb GLADKIKH Open Letter Since 3 September 1976 Yury Sergeyevicb Belov has been under compulsory treatment in your hospital He was transferred there from the Smolensk Speci'al Psychiatric Hospital of 1 be MVD USSR USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs At the beginning of January this year I visited Yury Sergeyevcb I also talked with some of the Hospital doctors in particular with yourself and with the doctor treating him V V Myasnikov about bis be·alth his conditions of confinement and about the possibility of discharge I am deeply convinced that Belov is mentally quite healthy and therefore the fact that he wasn't being subjected -to harmful tr atment or being subjected to a regime of restraint left me with a relatively favourable impression of your hospital and its doctors Myasnikov the doctor in charge of Belov's •treatment told me that at the moment Yury Sergeye vich is not socially dangerous and does not need to be a compulsory confinement any longer I could have answered that be never needed psychiatric help-however the evaluation of a person's psychic state is the prerogative of psychiatrists and I did not enter into fruitless arguments on this subject then but now I intend to prove that I am correct My own deep conviction that he is in perfect mental health is enough for me an impartial objective psychiatric examination of Yury Belov is a matter for the future However at that time on 5 January 1977 Yury Belov's doctor assured me 61 •that he would recommend his discharge and that the case would be referred to the Nizhne-Ingashsky district People's Court I left your hospital with the hope that Yu S Belov's 9 years of imprisonment was coming to an end and that in the near future my next meeting would be with Yury Sergeyevich as a fre e man However the facts which have become known to me during the last few days have aroused in me feelings of indignation and apprehension Indignation at the actions of the medical staff and apprehension about the health and the life of Yu S Belov I have learned that on 19 January Yury Sergeyevich Belov was put on a regime of strict isolation treatment with haloperidol triftazin and motidendepo was prescribed and hes begun and the writing materials and the transistor radio which I had given him were taken away I also found out that these actions were taken on account of the fact that on 7 and 8 January Belov met me that he had not altered his convictions and that he should be put in prison in any case There is a fantastic irony in your words and deeds Do you want take it out on him because I visited him in your hospital on my own initiative and without any plea or invitation from him Are you reproaching him with the fact that I gave him some food warm clothing and a transistor radio You do not wish that more such visits may take place in the future If so then punish me for this not Belov I went to visit him on my own initiative during my official vacation Bring criminal charges against me if you can I am ready fo answer for my actions What do you expect to gain To make Belov conform to that model in w tiose image you yourselves are created by suppressing his will and intellect with neuroleptic drugs Or are you forgetting the duty and honour of the medical profession simply obeying orders from •above In this connection I would like to remind you of the results of the Nuremberg trials when those punished included not only the organizers of crime but also those who carried out the criminal orders of the Nazis I will not even mention the Hippocratic oath which you violated on the day when you accepted a prefectly sane man-Yury Sergeyevich Belov-into your hospital I demand that you stop the persecution and humiliation of Yu S Belov Stop giving him triftazin Stop the murderous •itreatment with haloperidol and modandepo After forcible treatment with these preparations Belov has been subject to pains in the heart Recommend his release as you were intending to do before my visit I must emphasize this my visit to Belov was of an entirely personal nature He is my friend There was nothing criminal among the things which I gave him You have decided to give this matter a political nature You have taken the first step along the path to the physical annihilation of Yury Sergeyevicb Belov You know that he will not survive a new course of treatment with neurolepttc drugs I am calling on public opinion in our country and abroad to come to the defence of Yu S Belov I am calling on all people of good will to try to obtain Belov's release to save him from destruction in your psychiatric hospital ALEKSANDR PODRABlNEK The Public Group to Promote the Observance of the Helsinki Agreements in the U S S R DOCUMENT NO 2 Information on the Interruptwn of Human Contact in the Sphere of International Postal and Telephone Communications I In accordance with the Final Act of the European Conference on Security and Coowration paragraph Human Contact · It isthe aim of the participating states • rto facilitate f reer movement and contacts among persons and to contribute to the solution of humanitarian prohlems that arise in that connection Under conditions prevailing in the U S S R the free movement of Soviet citizens to travel to other countries of the world and to return to the U S S R is impossible if one bas in mind anything resembling free movement Therefore postal and telephone communications play an exceptionally important part in establishing more direct contacts between people and in the exchange 92-302-77--5 62 of humanitarian information However even this contact is also made extremely difficult if certain official organs do not approve the nature of the information exchanged II On August 31 1972 the Soviet Council of Ministers adopted a special resolution on an addendum to article 74 of the Soviet statute on communications which states the following The use of telephone communica·tion inter-urban urban rural for purposes contrary to state interests and the social order is forbidden In actual practice this addendum is used to disconnect telephones even without any warning after several telephone conversations with foreigners in· which any information which does not meet with officral approval is communfl ated · e g information on prisoners of conscience persecution of dissidents texts of statements in ·defense of those persecuted information from abroad on the reaction of Western public opinion to certain events in the Soviet Union The telephone is usually disconnected· with a warning that it not be used in the future for conversations with persons abroad but not infrequently -telephones are disconnected permanently and their numbers are assigned to other· subscribers ' · · · · · ·· · Following 1s a list of telephones known· to us to have been disconnected the' list does· 1fot include telephones which eventually have been reconnected by the authoritie n· - A Persons whose telephones were disconnected after the Final Act of the European Conference had been signed · · · 1 Valentin Turchin telephone 129-2 0 Moscow December 1975 Dr Tur-· r hin is the Chairman of the Soviet Group of the Amnesty International · · • ' 2 · Yuri Orlov telephone 129-51-60 'Moscow November 1975 Professor Orlov Is a inember of Amnesty International ·· · '3 Vadlni Botisov · telephone 452-85-00 Moscow August 1975 Borisov is the author of a -well-known artiele in the collection entitled Iz pod glyb'' From under the Rubble frowned upon the authorities · · 4 Abram Yutsis telephone 3-70-74 Odessa August 1975 5 Vlildimir Rayz telephone 75 90-21 Vilnius February 1976 6 Tatyana Khodorovich telephone 280-91-02 Moscow Tatyana Kbodorovich is a well-known civic leader After her·telephone was reconnected for a ·short time it ·was ·again disconnected when' Leonid Plyushch was preparing ·to 'leave tbe U S S' R During that time Tatyana Plyushch-Zhitnikova's telephone was also disconnected ' · · · · I ' ' 7 Borts Fridman t lephone 37-39-58 Minsk · 8 Lev 10vsi§h her telephone 2Z -Sl Minsk · 9 v1aaimir Kislik telephone 56-55-56 Kiev · 10 Ma1·k Nashpits 1-62 Tupik Chitiiiskay i oblast • 11 Vladimir Voinovich writer telephone 151-28-53 · ·B Persons· whose telephones were disconnected before •the signing' of lhe Final Act were not reconnected after the signing and still remain disconnected '· i 1 Nina- Jvanovna Bukovskaya 463-12-59 Moscow Telephone·disconnected 'on July 30 1975 Mother of the well-knowµ P risoner of conscience Vladimir Bukov l ky · ·' 2 Vladimir Slepak 229-57-82 Moscow 3 Vladimir Prestin 162-79-22 4 Pavel Abramovich 461-89-38 5 Yu Ii K' omarovsky 264-93-75 6 Ida Nudel 172-48-64 7 Aleksandr Lerner 137-53-96 8 Izal el a Novikova 301-11-39 9 Iosif Beylin 161-19-83 10 1 -lark Novikov 164-19-83 11 Vitaly Rubin 223 -54-72 294-97-59 12 Viktor Brailovsky 433-9 -28- 13 Viktor Elistratov 162-39-00 14 Vlildimir Shakhnovsky 482-92-32 15 Yevgeny Baras 241-46-02 16 Feliks Kandel 151-96 -E 5 17 Evgeny Yakir 129-26-30 18 Grigory Rozenshteyn 129-12-73 19 Nikolay Shepelev 461-88-76 20 Arkady Polishchuk 287-47-11 21 Lidia Voronina 295-57-77 · ·' ' 63 22 Ilya Essas 187-85-57 23 Naum Kogan 479-80-62 24 Iosif Blikh 10-98-98 Leningrad 25 Grigory Roman 14-73-66 Leningrad 26 Grigory Ioffes 19-52-21 Leningrad 27 Ekaterina Davidovich 32-71-14 Minsk 28 Grigory Khess 24-27-40 Minsk 29 Anna Ioffe 22-14-29 Minsk 30 - - Kushner 37-18-73 31 Isay Goldshteyn 22-71-19 Tbilisi 32 Ida Shtern 28 813 Vinnitsa Both lists are incomplete In those rare cases when the authorities for certain reasons do not· ·want to disconnect a -telephone e g Academician Sakharov's telephone or when a subscriber uses telephones in government telephone station_s conversations not approved by the authorities are either jammed or interrupted ve have established numerous cases when bOth parties expecting to talk with one another are·told that the conversation could not take place because one paL ty has not shown up or no·one answers the telephone III Postal communication with foreign countries is no less subject to control than telephone communication It is true that in this case it is much more difficult to prove intentional interruption of contact since the local postal authorities always say that it is not their fault that letters have not been delivered The experience of tliose who tried to obtain compensation through court action for the numerous letters which they have not gotten or which were not delivered e g Isay and Grigory Goldshteyn in ' rbilisi Mark Abramovich in Kishinev Icla Nude in Moscow shows that every time the investigation drags on for years and produces no resuUs Nevertheless in a number of cases the interruption in postal delivery is quite evident For example in April 1975 before the Final Act had been signed according -to American Jewish organizations about 4 000 telegrams were sent to Vladimir Slepak during his 22 day hunger strike in Moscow 1 evertheless not a single one reached him Ida Nudel did not receive a single one of the numerous telegrams sent to her from abroad on her birthday April 27 1976 ' whicll was already after the Final Act had been signed Dr Valentin Turchin Chairman of the Soviet Group of Amnesty International states Early in 1975 a few months after the Group was admitted to Amnesty International printed matter and letters sent from London stopped coming through altogether Until the end of 1975 I maintained contact with London by teleJ hone On December 11 my telephone was disconnected At first I was told that it was for six months If Orlov's case is to be taken as an example then probably my telephone will not be connected even after 6 months Thus contact with London will be totally halted It is even impossible to say how much material has been sent from London during this time and detained by the authorities It is quite possible that the General Secretary of M A A I translator's note seeing that the material sent out does not reach its desti• nation has stopped sending it Letters we sent abroad in defense of prisoners of conscience in foreign countries also apparently do not reach their destination as they are intercepted on the way Of the several dozen letters sent abroad by members of the group a considerable number about half was sent return receipt requested Only once did we receive confirmation that the letter was 1·eceived this was Viktor Sokolov's letter to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Spain Peralta But in addition to Amnesty International personal letters are also frequently detained by the authorities Postcards go through more frequently Only scientific journ ls arrive regularly As a rule other journals and books get lost In November 1975 Jeremy Stone Director of the American Federation of Scientists sent me l is book on the problem of disarmament The book never arrived I was assured by the local post office that it had never arrived there On the other hand a dictionary sent by the same Dr Stone was · safely delivered to my apartment Hence the authorities make their selection according to very evident principles But books and journals which are in great demand here also frequently never arrive Our American friends sent my son a subscription to The National Geographic for 1075 In all this time _o ly one issue arrived The magazine apparently charmed the censors 64 with its wonderful photographs In the summer of 1975 the Swedish mathematician Lars Elden sent me an historical novel about the Swedish Vikings in Russia The book never arrived IV All the facts of which we are informed speak of the continuing violations of the humanitarian articles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe both under the paragraph Human Contacts and basically under the paragraph Information l Iembers of the Group Yuri Orlov Vitaly Rubin Anatoly Shcharansky Lyudmila Alekseeva Submission for the record by Dr Andrew M Sessler Director Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory a·statem·ent on the arrest and detention Of Professor Yuri Oriov a telegram to the USSR Academy of Science signed by 225 scientists and a biogr·aphy of Professor Yuri Fyodorovich Orlov · · THE ARREST OF YURI ORLOV The arrest of Yuri Orlov by the Soviet Government on February 10 1977 is I allege a· violation of the Helsinki Accord Basket I Article VII ' 'his arrest has greatly disturbed many-and in particular his fellow high energy physicists Three of us Dr Andrew M Sessler Director Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Dr Karl Strauch Professor of Physics at Harvard University and Dr Gustav-Adolf Voss a member of the directorate of the DESY high energy research facility in Hamburg ' Vest Germany contacted over a two-day period a number of high energy physicists here and in Europe to join in a telegram which was sent on February 18 1977 to Professor A A Logunov Vice Presidenlt of the Soviet Academy Of Sciences We contacted a representative sample of high energy physicists totaling 225 scientists Of these only five re·quested that their names not appear on the telegram The reason they felt they could more effectively work for Orlov's release through ltheir contacts inside the Soviet Union ' · We feel that the contents of this telegram and the list of very distinguished signers including six'Nobel Prize winners should be brought up at Belgrade as an expression of deep concern for Dr Orlov's fate by his fellow scientists around the world High energy physicists have for many years pioneered in collaborations between Soviet ahd European and Soviet and American scientific groups ·These collaborations have resulted in significant contributions to knowledge • These many international contacts have resulted in Orlov being personally known to many western physicist i and consequently his fellow high energy physicists are deeply disturbed by· his arrest See Attachment A for the telegram and list of signers We would emphasize that we sent this telegram as private citizens and concerned scientists and not as representatives of the various institutions with which we are affiliated · • Orlov is a distinguished Soviet high energy physicist and a corresponding member of the Armenian Academy of Sciences He has recently formed and heads an unofficial committee which monitors Soviet compliance with the human rights provisions of the 1975 Helsinki Agreement See Attachment B for Orlov's biography and ·a list of his publications Orlov's case has attracted the attention of many including Senator Hayakawa see Attachment C and Mr Rodding Carter III of the Department of State See Attachment D · - Orlov's confinement follows the recent arrest or imprisonment of other Soviet dissidents including Mykola Rudenko Sergei Kovalev Aleksandr Ginzburg and others News stories giving the details-to the extent that we know them-of Orlov's arrest and associated background information are appended See Attachments E F G H ·· · In my opinion this is a flagrant case of violation of the Helsinki Accord which besides·being extremely serious for Yuri Orlov will have as the Soviet authorities make their charges ·against Orlov public an increasingly chilling effect-on SovietUSA scientific relations · · Si erely · ANDREW M SESSLER 65 The scientists' telegram was sent on Feb 18 1977 ancl reads Professor A A Logunov Vice President U S S R Acaclemy of Science Leninsl y PR 14 Moscow A-83 Dear Professor Logunov We the undersigned have noted the recent arrest of Dr Yuri Orlov He is known to all of us as a distinguished scientist and a respected member of the international community of high energy physicists ve want you to know of our great concern for Dr Orlov and hope that the matter of his arrest can be favorably resolvecl in short order The scientists who signed the telegram are listed below Bonn W Germany i' I Morpurgo G Petrucci K Dietz G V Gehlen E Picasso Husmann J Prentki G Knoop L Raclicati W Paul L Resegotti V Rittenberg W Schnell H Rollnick T Steinberger H 0 '1'uester Daresbury Engla na B Zumino A Ashmore Hamburg W Germany Bailey J Bienlein T J Duke W Jentschke R Marshall W Koch J C Thompson H Schopper Darmstadt W Germany P 1Soeding O Schmelzer M Teucher G A Voss Frascati Ita7 y G Weber B Allen G Wolf M Bassetti G Belletini Heidelberg W Germany G ·capitanL Heinze V Chimenti iSoergel R A Del Fabro E De Sanctis Karlsrzilte W Germany E Fiorintino Citron A Gattono Heinz E Jaroccl Schatz C Mencucclnl Muenclwn W Germany G Murtas C Pellegrini H P Duerr P Picchi Buschhorn A Reale N 'Schmitz C Sanelli W Zimmerman M Serio Orsa11 France S Tazzari F Tazzioli Augustin A Treger Beck Belbeoch Geneva Switzerland Bergher U Amaldi Bieth D Amati Bizot F Bonaudi Brunet P Darriulat Buon T Ericson Chabert P Falk-Vairant Cordier S Fubini Cosme V Glaser Conran J D Jackson Davier M Jacob Delcourt K Johnsen E Keil Dudelzark Eschtruth R Levy-Mandel E Lohrmann Ferme I Mannelli Fulda A Martin Gendreau 66 Orsau France-Continued Greland Haissinski H'irrar Jullian Daclare Lalanne LeLeux La Planche Le Duff Lefort Le ·Francois Level Marin Morellet Paulot Perez-y-Jorba Potaux Ramband Ropert Rumpf Sommer Szklarz Tkatchenko Zyngier Rome ItaZy Eduardo Amaldi 0 •Bassani G Chiarotti G iSalvin'i C 1Schaerf •4-nn Arbor Mich Kent i I Terwilliger Batavia JU Frank T Cole Edwin L Goldwasser l 'red Mills Leo 'l 'eng Robert R Wilson BerlceZey CaUf Robert Birge Owen Chamberlain Geoffrey Chew William Chinowsky Tom Elioff Gerson Goldhaber Hermann A Grunder Walter D Hartsough David L Judd Denis Keefe Glen R Lambertson L Jackson Laslett Edward J Lofgren Edwin M McMillan Piermaria Oddone Jack M Peterson Art Rosenfeld Andrew M Sessler Lloyd Smith George Trilling William A Wenzel Brookhaven N Y Mark Q Barton John P Blewett Renata W Chasman Ernest D Courant Maurice Goldhaber G Kenneth Green Alfred W Maschke Meh'in Month David Rahm R Ronald Rau Lyle W Smith George H Viney rd Cambridge Mass Martin Deutsch Herman Feshbach l 'rancis E Low · Francis i f Pipkin Norman l ' Ramsey Karl Strnuch Richard Vilson Chicago Ill • ' Herbert Anderson James W Cronin Malcolm Derrick Tom Fields Ron l fartin Rol Jert Sachs CoZlege Park Md _ Robert Glucksteiti George A Snow Kurt Gottfried T Kinoshita Boyce McDaniel · Edward E Salpeter ' Kenneth Wilson ' · Donald R Yennie Los Alamos N Mex Edward Knapp Darragh Nagle Donald Swenson Los Angeles Calif Harold Ticho New Haven Conn Robert K Adair New York N Y · Charles Baltay Rodney L Cool Leon M Lederman Won Yon Lee AI Jraham Pais Pasadena Calif Murray Gell-M nn Princeton N J Val Fitch Marvin L Goldberger Sam B 'l 'reiman Santa Barbara Calif Jose ·Fulco Santa Gruz Calif l fatt Sands 67 Stanford Calif Joseph Ballam James D Bjorken Richard Blankenbecler Stanley Brodsky Sidney Drell Richard Helm William Herrmannsfeldt Robert Hofstadter David Leith Terry Martin Philip l Iorton Wolfgang Panofsky l Iartin Perl John Rees Burton Richter Richard Taylor Perry B Wilson Herman Winick Stony Broolc N Y Chen-Ning Yang Urban t Ill Albert Wattenberg BIOGRAPHY OF YURI l 'YODOR0VICH ORLOV Born in 1024 His childhood was spent in the village between l Ioscow and Sueslensk in the forests in his father's native land He lived with his grandmother who would earn a living by doing midwifing and herbal cures sewmg and knitting There was also a small g arden plot And nothing else in the household The father worked in Moscow as a teamster Once when an urchin threw himself headlong or fell accidentally down under his wheels he quit to hecome a worker and in a while a student rabfac a department for the worker's education in a universi'ty He died in 1933 of tuberculosis not yet having graduated but working already as an engineer Yuri's mother was raised in a family of a ship mechanic on the Kama R_iver and the whole family died of typhus during the Civil var Then when she met Yuri's father in Moscow he was taken with her beauty and b•rayery Yuri went to school iu Moscow and lived with his mother and stepfather The stepfather was a worker in an archives and was a very kind albeit unlucky artist He was drafted in the first year of World War II and died in battle near Kharkov in 1942 At the beginning of the War Yuri worked as a turned at a plant ·while working there with the friend of an uncle Yuri was told by this friend Hope that the alliance in this War with democratic countries will lead to democratization of ours after the War Yuri wondered how he could say that since all of the newspapers books and teachers had told him that the Soviet Union was the most democratic country in the world and that only this democracy was authentic Yuri wondered why this moan was not afraid of being reported by· an informer · · In 1944 Yuri was drafted into the army and was sent to a military college then i month before the war ended he was sent to the Ukrainian front In military college he had become a candidate-member of the Communist Party After the var some officers appeared to have a very critical attitude toward the Soviet regime Yuri took part in discussions in small closed groups of 3 or 4 men which centered around protest of the dictatorship of the bureaucracy and desire to return to the original Marxist ideas but did not fully understand all of these things Yuri while serving in the army after the war in the North Caucasus had diligently studied the works of classic Marxism and of Hegel trying to find the true ideology · He had compiled two thick notebooks containing among other things many disloyal excerpts from Engles Once when he was summoned to the Special Department a representative of the KGB in almost any Soviet organization Yuri burned them However the summons proved to be just an offer to become a secret agent It took a while for him to understand the real reason for their having called him and once he did understand he categorically refused The persuading lasted 2 days At the end he was taken over to a high official who asked Yuri why do you think that with us it is like in the Gestapo' For the s cond time Yuri was overwhelmed Strange as it was according to Yuri he did not know it did not occur to him and nobody told him what the real dimensions of repression in the Soviet Union were and what the natuTe of it was Yuri had not coID e be urious a out it perhaps due to fear as it was perilous even to ask In lus rmg discussion group this topic was not touched During the_ demobilization at the end of 1946 Yuri went back to schoo·l prepared for entrunce ex·ams to Moscow University and simultaneously held a job 68 as a stove stoker at a Moscow factory This job gave him plenty of time to prepare and assured him of bread ration-cards 'l'his work at the ·university in physics technical and then in the physics department was finished in 1952 In 1948 he vas obliged to transfer to a membership in the Party from the candidate status During his study all political doul Jts had been totally put aside It is interesting that out of a group of seven students living in the same flat at the same scientific institute where the practical classes were held three happened to be secret agents Incidently the physico-technical department was reformed into the institute in 1951 with all the Jewish students being transferred to Ryazan and Kazan and all Russian students to Moscow University and Moscow Institute of Physics Engineering As a result of this one very talented student Eskin committed suicide by throwing himself out of a seventh floor window In 1953 Yuri began his work at the Institute of 'l'heoretical and Experimental Physics which was headed by the academician A I Alichanyan By the 1 Jeginning of 1956 his thesis was completed and his first article was pul Jlished in Nuovo Cimento This was generally the very beginning of somewhat freer publications on topics which had been considered prior to that as closed or secret but which were not really secret at all Yuri collaborated in five reports at the 1956 Geneva Conference In April 1956 Yuri spoke out at a Party meeting in the Institute against Party policy before the 20th Congress The meeting was devoted to discussions of materials concerning the 20th Congress Yuri spoke about the general loss of honesty and morality and about the need for democratic reforms The meeting seemingly upheld his view and other speeches in the same spirit A few days later a huge and slanderous column emerged in Pravda detailing a secret letter from the Central Committee to party members in which the party's evaluation of those speeches was given Yury was immediately fired by order from 1the very top expelled from the party and his name was erased from scientific reports on the grounds that his name is shameful for the Soviet science as he was notified officially His dissertation was banned For 6 months Yury was unemployed However in mai ty of the physics instis tutes people donated money to help those who had been fired so that this period was not a very great ordeal -In Moscow -nobody would give him a scientific teaching job One personnel officer•impudently told him to go to a plant wpere he could be ''reforged Soon the law about parasites was issued Therefore Yury to ok an offer of A E Alichanyan the brother of A I Alichanyan and moved to Armenia to work on the project and an electron ring accelerator · Things went successfully there for Yury and at the end of 19158 he even managed with some 'pressure to have his dissertation admitted to a defence In 1963 he defended his doctoral dissertation Doctor is the second scholarly ciegree in the U S S R the first degree being that of Candida te which is roughly equivalent to the _Ph D in the United States On the 40th anniversary of Soviet Armenia Khrushchev travelling in Armenia ordered the people to forget the past and Yuri was retrieved and given again his secret classification status Without this status he could not read some of his own classified works could not enter many of the buildings in l foscow's institutes for use of the libraries as well as many other pretty ridiculous restraints ·· The order ''tq forget was honef tly fulfilled In 1968 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia even approved leaving Yuri's name on the slate of nominees for election to the Armenian Academy of Science and Yuri was elected a corresponding member of the Academy In general the attitude of people in Armenia towards him was always singularly good The election rei ults howev·er proved to be quite unexpected in Moscow Pressure on Yuri increased there were restrictions in business trav_elling and other repercussions Yuri was never allowed·to go abroad · · · 'In 1972 Yuri was forced to leave Armenia for Moscow where after a half year of severe hardships he was shoved by L A Artz movitz into an institute under hH stipervisiori ' On September 16 1973 · Yuri wrote a letter to Brezhnev rega·rding •the campaign ·against Sakharov In October of that year beca e involved with an initiative group of Amnesty International and was prom ptly'flred from his job Amsartsuinyan the president of the Academy of Science of Armenia in spite of his promise could not hire him even in Armenia In February of 1974 he 69 Yuri Orlov signed an appeal devoted to the eviction of Solzhenitsyn In May of 1076 he headed a committee called the Group to Assist Fulfillment of the Helsinki Accords in the U S S R which would inform the heads of all signatory states of any Soviet violations of the Helsinki Agreement Soviet authorities in l Iay of 197li searched his flat and claimed to find evidence which proved that his activities were directed from abroad In early 1977 Orlov was arrested along with Alek Ginzberg on charges of anti-Soviet activities NoTEs The information contained in the body of this biographical summary was provided by Khronika Press in New York wilth details about Orlov's 1976-77 actil'ities provided by the Bay Area Council on Soviet Jewry in San Francisco Calif The use of parentheses in the body of this work indicates that there is some uncertainty about the precision of translation from the Russian The following documents were translated by the Helsinki Guarantees for Ukraine Committee vasllington D C and submitted to the Commission UKRAINIAN PUBLIC GROUP TO PROMOTE THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE HELSINKI ACCORIJS MEMORANDUM NO 4 On New Repressions in Ulcraine Against Members of the Helsinki Group On February 5 1977 the organs of the KGB and the procuracies of Kiev Donetsk and Moscow regions again conducted searches in the apartments of tile members of the Ukrainian Public Group In the apartment of the leader of the Group Mykola Rudenko llis literary archives 90 percent· of which had been purloined during the previous search this time were stolen in their entirety In addition Rudenko's wife Rayisa his son Yuri and a member of the Group the writer 0 Oles Berdnyk were subjected to personal searches without the presenrtatioil of a warrant Those performing the search conducted themselves roughly obviously they were employees of the organs of the KGB After the search the leade1· of this action the deputy procurator of Donetsk Region Noskov took Rudenko away without answering his wife's questions as to the grounds on which he was being held For 3 days the Kiev procuracy did not answer Rayisa Rudenko's questions about the fate of her husband finally on the fourth day she was informed •that he was in inve tigation solitary confinement cell No 1 in Donetsk Region Not a search but a real pogrom was conducted in the apartment of Q Meshko a member of the Group Investigating officer Pankov of the Kiev procuracy the warrant issued at the request of the Moscow procuracy broke a window like a bandit and climbed into the apartment He took everything that was either handwritten or typed as he put it all the trash After Oksana Meshko refused to submit to a personal search demanding a warrant for that the investigating officer twisted her arm and with the help of two women searched her roughly Searches were also conducted in the apartments of l I Myroslav Marynovych md M Mykola l fatusevych both members of the Public Group as well as in the apartments of their parents and relatives in Kiev Vasylko and Drohobych Those performing the searches conducted themselves roughly not even granting the essentials to small children-a walk rest food All these searches and the violence were conducted supposedly in connection with the case of 0 Oleksiy Tykhy a member of the Public Group living i-'1 the Donbas The essence of the case on the basis of which 0 'l'ykby wa·s arrested has not been disclosed · One thing is clear the arrest of the leader of the Group l I Rudenko and a member 0 Tykhy as well as the searches in the apartments of the other mein' llers are ·but the beginning of a whirlwind of repression which the KGB is preparing to direct against the Public Groups in the U S S R ·· Note On February 8 of this year the ·physician M Kovtynenko who ha'd refused to act as the KGB's informer on M Rudenko was sentenced to one and a half year's imprisonment The regional court punished hiin for taking bribes -three and a half rubles a can· of coffee etc It is obvious that thi s ·cnse had ·been fabricated · · A lot depends on world public opinion will this ominous wave subside will ·the ·repressive organs return those arrested back to their hoines will they allow 70 the legal monitoring of the implementation of the Helsinki Accords Or will the spirit of Helsinki the Spirit of Cooperation and Friendship of Trust among people-be laid to rest benea-th the crags of ruthless despotism and Ia wlessness ' Members of the Ukrainian Public Group to Promote the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords · L LUKYANENKO 0 BERDNYK P 0 HRYHORENKO MESHKO M MARYNOVYCH M MATUSEVYCH N STROKATA · I KANDYBA February 9 1977 The signed copy is ke11t in·the Group's archives S 0 BERDNYK To the Countries· Participating in the Belgrade Conference in ·the Summer of 1977 MEMORANDUM NO 5 UKRAINE OF THE SUMMER OF 197'7 INTRODUCTION The historic wm of a people inevita bly manifests itself in one or another form revelation or action As a mountain stream searches out crevices in order to carve out a channel for itself so does the dynamic essence of a people find spokesmen for itself-spokesmen who are sons of its spirit-in order to give to other fraternal-peoples a sign of its will · The Ukrainian Public Group to Promote the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords is one such sign The bureaucratic structure of the Soviet Union reacted to the appearance of the Group to Promote with great pain and hosfility During the three months it has beei i in existence the security organs KGB conducted several brutal harsh and savage searches in each of I-ts mem bers' a partments confiscating almost all of the Group's literary epistolary ·and philosophical archives its documents a number of books which had no relationship to the case etc Finally on February 5 1977 the head of the Group the poet Mykola Rudenko an cl a Group member teacher Oleksiy Tykhy were arrested with no charges whatsoever being filed against them What is it that the initiators of the above-mentioned lawlessness and arbitrariness are so terrified of What terrifying th'ings do they see in people who ovenly state their conv-ictions while inviting the ruling circles of their own country and other states to a creative evolutionary dialogue The courage and openness wibh which the Group has come fo'r ward prove that its members are not enemies of the Soviets Councils nor to the revolutionary ideals of a New World nor to the humane ideals of Socialism and Communism What need was there for the searches and arrests when all of the Group's documents were released to the world for the purpose of making them public We are not building an underground--l his proves that we do not intend to overthrow the Soviet system We are not afraid of discussion-this proves that we are sure of our· convict'ions We are ready to have our ideas either approved or rejected in an all-national referendum and th'is proves that we would joy fully accept the will of the nation · · · · · Is the bureaucratic structmre--- which· has at its disposal an apparatus of repression censorshtp obedient servall' s l nd the fear sown in the 1Stalin era and undispelled to this day-ready for these· things We ·are few hut we contend that with us is the will of Evolution That is why again and again patiently in friendf hi p and with hope we a ppeal to the ruling circles of the land Cease tlie repressions against honest people who think differently than do dogmatists and the orthodox Such people are the hope of the future Such people can be counted on in threatening times they will ·not betray W Qy should hey be feared those who spe k the truth while r sking their 71 lives health and personal happiness On the contrary they should be invited to take part in constructive discussions and action A normal governmental structure should be interested in our op position for forces that criticize are a sign and certification of the e istence of shortcomings and therefore of the opportunity to better the situation On the other hand universal approbation at elections conventions and meetings is not joy but misforbune and a terrifying sign for it au attests that the spirit of the people is dying · A nation's monolithic quality is manifested not through bureaucrat'ic resolutions and approbations but through the freedom and unfettered nature of the spiritual and intellectual life of the people such freedom should be aspired to rather than have its coming obstructed with arrests and repress'ions We declare sincerely and courageously that we have no fear of a new wave of persecution for Truth is on our side · All people die ·but some die as nobodies cowards and trait rs ·and some as true sons of their Mother their Nation We prefer to die the way the glorious knights of the Zaporozhian 1Sich died the way Taras Shevchenko Lesya Ukrayinka and the Stonecutter Ivan Franko died · having carri_ed out Ukraine's w'ill as it had made itself known within their hearts And no v the voice of 'Mother Ukraine thunders in our hea rts In doing her bidding we offer to other Fraternal Peoples our credo our hopes our confidencl that Light will conquer Darkness that the era of enmity fragmentation and hostility will come· to an end and the •Sun of Freedom wm rise over the Earth Listen t the Word of Ulcraine of the y1par 1977_ 1 STATEHOOD All of the historical cataclysmi i_that the Ukrainian people·liyed through during the past few centuries were born of the idea of Statehood The Will of a Nation aspires to n_onsubordin_ation to· sovereignty to ·the building of· its own ind ' pendent life at the same time neighboring imperialistic predators do ·everything iii'their po'wer not to·allow such ·sovereignty - but to preserve •the Nation Chosen as Victim in the form of i L raw mii terial- -as a sourc of food of spiritual force of energy of everything else · · · · _· · · · This is·what happened to Ukraine 'fhough possessed of an enormous reservoir of love of freedom wisdom creativity 'of rare J iches of the earth and the spirit in a critical moment she was unable to· hold on to her Statehood· arid beca·me colony of a cruel merciless' empire whose will was diametrically opposed to the of Ukraine - · · · ·Russfo violated all the fraternal ·treaties and· trampled underfoot the Worcl spoken at the Treaty of Pereyaslav A people whose love of freedom Europe had enthused over became serfs slaves •bondservants to alien ravagers Hryhoriy Petrovsky speaking in the Duma provided an excellent characterization of autocracy's criminal activity in· Ukraine-- -degradation of cultural and spiritual life ·merciless exploitation of natural ·resources unceasing·genocide - · · ' 'his is why the Ukrainian people so joyously supporte d the Revolution ·and the 1 1 roclamatiort of the Ukrainian Republic · - - · The ·more outstanding ideas of the Ukrainian revolutionaries as well ·as in's ideas on the nationality question however were never put into ·practice In the following years the chau istic spirit of autocracy' could riot be •defeated i tnd the spirit of Catherine and Peter found its still inore terrible embodiment in Stalin's malignant activity · · - · · · · ·' • · · · · • Millions hounded and tortured to death millions ·dead of starvation an of· this has been known to everyone for a long time Sometimes it even seems strange why Ukraine still exists on geographical maps - why a Ukrainian word can still be heard now and then And the strangest of all is that Ukraine is a member of the United Nations and therefore is-considered a Sovereign State We will not b playing blindman's buff this statehood of ours is nothing but a paper mirage And the time has come to dot all the i's to end the incessant and insidiou·s game with our sovereignty as well as with the sovereignty of all the other Union republics _· · The will of history is such that every nation even the smallest stepped onto the field of history as the one-for-all-time Son of His Mother within the One i Brotherhood of Mankind · · - · a will Len- 72 We deeply respect the culture the spirituality the ideals of the Russian peo• ple But why should Moscow be making the decisions for us at international forums for example the Helsinki or Belgrade forums as to these or other problems obligations etc Why should Ukraine's cultural creative scientific agricultural and international problems be defined and planned in the capital of the neighboring even if allied state · We are not naive simpletons We understand that at work here is that very same spirit of imperialism and chauvinism about which our Bard Taras Shevchenko wrote with such clarity and anger It was he Peter the First who crucified Our Ukraine And Catherine the Second finished off The widow-orphan Executioners _executioners nd cannibals • You can't say it better than that And present-day revolutionaries communists romantics and builders of the New World of'Love and Brotherhood should carefully read through the manuscripts of the past so as not to wander among the abstractions of excogitated schemes but instead to gird themselves in the impregnable armor of the testaments of the Spirit of the People We are not ones to be caught in· Ii netting of criminal fabrications unless the satraps of the bureaucratic citadel simply crush us without resorting to any kind of legality Simply sincerely and with conviction we announce several thoroughly thoughtout positions on the subject of Statehood that of neighboring peoples as well as of our own -Not the Individual for the State but the State for the Individual That is why any and all social transformations should receive the Nation's approbation through a popular referendum All those voices of the people that have been organized in the press will be discarded onto the traSh heap of history - -We are not raising the issue of Ukraine's separation We don't have anyone to separate from The planet is one Mankind is one Frateral peoples are our neighbors J 'rom whom should be separate -On the contrary we raise ·the issue of Annexation the Annexation of Ukraine Russia Georgia Latvia and other fraternal nations to the One Spirit of Mankind •- We iare for an Association whose name is the Union of Soviet SociaU t Republics 18 lld which will in time be transformed into a Brother hooil of Free Peoples of tJbe Earth But EVERY NATION-should be a FREE AGENT within this iassociation and independent in its creative spirit Only lllllder this condition will VW1ish those deformations that distort relations among peoples arid sow discord and suspicion In short a people should be masters of their land their tradition their creative inheritance their futurologwal aspirations their will to build a better life for all for everyone Therefore the most radical demand of the spirit of the Ukrainian Nation for itself iand for fraternal peoples is full sovereignty of creative manifestation in all areas of spiritmal iand economic life Nothing on earth can prevent the eII bodi ment of the idea into visible forms of historical reality for this is the will of evolution Exactly how the social transformations tihe strengtihening of the sovereignty of this nation or another will be m a nifested is difficult to foresee rand it should not be planneo A nration--ia sleeping giant--dlas in its heJa t lillallY surprises for its enemies and skeptics · · But one thing is cl081r no great raction of historical importance w1ll ·'tlver oe realized without ra free thinking and fearless individual Thiat is why speciial attention is due the Individual his spirit and his rights 2 · YAN HIS BIGHTS A chimeric situation we have a Constitmtion that is not altogether bad oua country signed tlhe Universal Declal ation of Human Rights and the Helsinki Accords and in ran these documents ia e endless repetitions about Humnn Rights about all that Man can do and has ia right to and this and that etc ut when it comes to reality then iall of tJbese rights ruid opportunities turn not only into mirages but into cruel blows By demanding that which is declared in official documents a human being dooms himself to endless tortures Himself and his closest 73 A teririfying paradox one which needs to be explained Without a doubt the gist Qf the matter is that RIGHTS are decLared by the bureaucratic structure in a manner of speaking they are posted on a wall rather than Flow Out of Man's Sense of Legality Itself We shall cite a very simple example · Freedom of Speech Freedom of Expression Freedom of Emigration and Immig-ration iand so on • In declaring these rig hts the government structure didn't tell Man anything new but blasphemously only inter prets for ihim thiat which belonged to every thinking being down thTough the centuries and not only to Mian but to every living thing And whereas early man asked only himself the God within him whether to act one way or another now he must ask for PERMISSION FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH OR ACTION 1lrom some bookworm f rom some bureaucratic soul And bureaucrats it's clear will always find a plethora of paragraphs and pseudolegal loopholes in order to forbid Man to realize his will Our eX ample-the present situation If you wish to leave you're an enemy of the State But the state i$ formed by my voluntary agreement with others it follows then thiat I can create ta state nnd also dissolve it And if others wish to retain it this does not give them the rig ht to keep me a prisoner of their will for they themselves turn into jailers and slaves If you think differently you're an enemy of the State Does the State have some obligatory thought which should guide all thinking An idea is lightning How can it be brought into line with ia law Whoever says that he thinks AS THI J STATE DEMANDS does not think at all for to repeat blindly someone else's thoughts-even though they be bdlliant_ is to become a parrot a phonog raph a -ecord T he essence of 1all these ideas is that we must without flail return man to his status as the WARD OF LAW which is iattested to in Article 6 of the Universal Declar ation of Human Rights and act according to the will of the Ward and not according to a paragraph of a stJatute created to obsoure the RIGHTS rather than to fulfill them Therefore all decla rations in constitutions international leg al documents and the like concerning Human Rights should not be viewed as the right of a hure rncrnt tn allow me this or that but as the Right of Man to turn the sword of Laws on the bureaucrats when one or another of them does not allow the legal assertion of the will of the ward We of course are not speaking here of those impingements by the wa rd upon others upon thek Rights that are clearly criminal Concretely we demand Freedom to leave one's home and and to return ll'reedom to disseminate one's id©s and to get iacquainted wiflh the ideas of others · Freedom to furm creative artistic philosophical 1and scientific associations and to dissolve them Freedom to take part in the formulation of the consciousness of the people and in the affairs of state Freedom to w6rk toward the unification of the Spirit of Man based on Brotherhood Love and Reason Man is a wondrous -Flower of Evolution His mission-to unite a world fragmented since creation into a Magic vreath of Beauty and Harmony The realization of this· idea ·stands in the way of the spirit of militarism of presentrlay imperialism of chauvinism In these menacing times when the ecological demographic energetic and economic halance of the Planet hns been catastrophically distu1'11ed we cannot do without the amicable selfless sincere actions of all peoples and individuals Governmental structures which do not understand or which do not want to understancl the horror of the situation or which though understanding cri1ninnlly ignore it-such structures ·are enemies of Evolution and as such of all of Mankind Therefore the violation of the right of nations to self-determination to a sovereign spiritual life as well as the violations of the Human Right to sovereign self-expression are violations of cosmic law A governmental structure which is guilty of such violations is an enemy of all of Mankind and falls under the merciless verdict of history-to be erased from the Stone Tablets of the Future and covered with eternal shame and damnation 02-302-77--G 74 We are puzzled by_ the calni and indifference with ·which· government leaders of certain countries react to repressions in countries which signed the· Helsinki 1 ccords 1t is clear that ·mockery ·of Human Rights 'is something not otit' of the ordinary for all states but such ·indifference should not have a place in the 20th century for we I re on the threshol d of the Cosmic Birth Even one cruel va 1dalic act against any single Individual could be decisive· on God's Cosniic Judgment Day · · Can it· be that ·anyone would find it ' pleasant to become renowned as a presentday inquisitor and tryant Would it not be more pleasmit and more humane to open the ·prison doors elimina_te censorship disperse the informers and provocateurs dispel the fear that has enveloped the soul of the people and pre ·ents them from spreading their shoulders to full width am rushing fMward· toward evolutionary renewal '· · · · Ukraine of the year 1977 proposes That all borders of the country be opened to allow people to leave and criminal codes of the Soviet Union and·the Repul Jlics elfminated · · That all borders of the country be opened to allow people to leave and - That channels be opened for the free flow of information-scientific artistic iiterary personal and any other kind that does not infringe upon Human Rights That censorship as an institution that is a relic oi 'feudalisiil lie eliminated for all time with the right to withhold all military and pornographic publications· from book and other markets transferred to publishers That capital punishment be eliminated as a manifestation of the criminal'ity of governmental structures The State CAN NOT GIVE BIR'l'H TO Lll E IT DOES NO' ' HAVE THE RIGHT TO TAKE IT AWAY That the very idea of killing be condemned at the level of the United Nations thus branding an states and' persons that desire to further their designs through killing 'ars as enemies of Mankind who have no right to enter into a Common Future · · · That all armies except internal peace forces be eliminated within the · next few years and an All-Planetary Brotherhood of Peoples be created based on the United Nations · That economic ecological demographic and cosmological problems be resolved through common effort · · It is time to awaken from the bureaucratic somnolence to realize that the problems of one human heing are the problems of aU of Mankind and in all our actions to start from the BASE COMMON TO ALL UKRAINE OF THE YEAR 1077 is filled with the most sincere aspirations desires and wishes and sends to the brotherly peoples at the Belgrade Forum its Greeting and Love · Ukraini'lln Pul Jlic Group to Promote the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords OLES BERDNYK PETRO HRYHORENKO OKSANA MESHK0 LEVKO LUKYANENKO IVAN KANDYBA NINA STROKATA MYK0LA MATUSEVYCII liYROSLAV MARYN0VYCH February 15 1977 MEMORANDUM NO 6 Concerning the So-Called Internal Affairs of a State In response to the arrests of the leaders and members of the Ukrainian and Moscow Public Groups the sea of World Conscience stirred Today it is no longer possible to oppress with impunity the champions of Law in any country for on the horizon of History Nuremberg looms •to this day menacingly warning all tyrants · Having usurped the constitutional prerogatives the bureaucratic structure of the U S S R attempt to save its unlawful privileged position by labelling all international protests against arbitrariness as interfere ice into the internal affairs of the Soviet state · 75 If one 'were to accept this juridical thesis· as the basis for internati9nal activity then·this would grant present-day tyrants of the Eastan 1 West-the·right to suppress with no hindrance freedom of thought and action thus -brlngiug to a stop Mankind's progression toward a World of Justice • •· · · · · • The lawful entity ward of Law in the internal life of a state is Man The lawful entity ward ·of Law in international relations is the State This is well known But if a State in its internal life tramples on the interests and rights of its citizens such ·a country in terms of legality - is bankrupt · and ca uot be trusted' in'-'the least for in its laws it declares one thing but ·in practice does omething totally different Masquerading ·behind the fiction of internal affairs of the state -the r_epressive organs of our country imprison creative and thinking individuals fighters for Law and independently minded cultural activists plunder literary-and scientific· archives destroy the works of writers who are not to their •liking comvletely control correspondence dej ri ve disobedient individuals of ·their job install electronic surveillance devices in apartments· and offices persecute these and other people with the help of provocateurs agents and informers fabricate ·'criminal cases • against freethinkers do not give the persecuted an· opwrtunity to emigrate to another country etc This entire bouquet of lawlessness this total disregarfl' for• the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and·the Helsinki accords iS hidden behind the formula of non-interference into internal affairs''· Of course for the old Stalinists who because the task• of censuring the personality ctilt vas not brought to conclusion still abound in ·the jt1dicialinvestigative organs and in the KGB and who are accustomed to working in the dark of ni ght 'and in ·total secrecy from the Soviet and world public aspirations to act in tlie spirit of the Helsinki Accords and to make public facts about violations of Human Rights constitute interference into their internal affairs How- ever pre-trial investigation solitary confinement cells · prisons ·concentration camps-these-are not the internal affair of the KGB or the· MVD they are the affair of all Soviet peoples the affair of all of Mankind If the Soviet peoples are not indifl'e rerit'to the fate of Chilean patriots and if mass il allies-of workers in the u s S R hi their support are not interference· into the internal affairs of Chile then ·by ·the· same token mass rallies of citizens of Western countries in support of Soviet and ·particularly Ukrainian fighters for the ·realization of the Helsinki agree1iients do not constitute interference into the· internal affairs of the U S S R Indeed ·International solidarity in defense of Justice is the most beautiful symbol of our era It is the harbinger of a New World of Love and of a Single Spirit of Mankind which is· being born in the social upheavals of the 20th· century · · Nations of the World nations of the Belgrade Forum We appeal to ·you-demand an answer from the usurpers of the Law wherever they inay appear r Ar hitrariness and Iitwlessness cannot be permitted to rage on Earth just before the dawning of a World of Unity The struggle for Human Rights is not the internal affair of this or·that state it is the internal affair of a united mankind Freedom tci the courageous Fighters for Law Ukrainian · Public Group to Promote the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords February 21 1977 Kiev Ukraine · ·' · OLES BERDNYK PETRO HRYHORENKO OKSANA MESHKO MYKOLA MATUSEVYCH MYROSLAV MARYN0VYCH IVAN KANDYBA LEVKI' LUKYANENKO NINA STROKATA The signed original is in the Archives of the Group MEMORANDUM NO 7 The Ukrainian Group To Promote The First Four Months On March 9 1977 the Ukrainian Group to Promote marked the· first four months of its existence In our Declaration and Memorandum No 1 we announced the ha sic principles- of our activity and defined our mission as a MOVEMENT IN DEFENSE OF LAW directed at correcting bureaucratic and other distortions and abuses which are unavoidable in a society with an immature democracy or a dictatorship 76 Human Rights encompasses the widest spectrum of thought feelings and actions Therefore we indicated that in giving priority to the humanitarian aspects of the Helsinki Accords the Group would also note violations of rights in the social economic and national spheres of the life of the Ukrainian people In our Declaration we stated that it is an absolute necessity that Ukraine participate in all conferences of European countries as a sovereign nation a member o-f the United Nations There can be no reasonable alternative to this Incidentally it must be noted that other European Republics of the U S S R find themselves in a similar position Byelorussia Moldavia Latvia Lithuania Estonia and most of all the largest of the Republics the Russian Federation They too have never been represented at European conferences by separate delegations In ·addition to this Latvia Lithuania Estonia Moldavia and Russia as well as the Asian Republics of the Union-Georgia Armenia Azerbaidzhan Turkmenistan Kazakhstan Kirghizia and Tadzhikistan-are not even members of the UN Actually it is a startling fact that one of the largest nations in the world the Russian nation is not a member o-f the UN along with the other above-mentioned nations Although we point this out only in passing it is a bitter fact which supports the conclusion that the problem of Rights and Mutual Relations of the Republics of the U S S R is totally unresolved ve also declared it our aim to struggle to increase consciousness of law among broad masses of the Ukrainian people in the hope that by the joint efforts of fighters· for Law and world opinion we would succeed in overcoming the opposition of-the bureaucratic structure and the various repressive organs in the area of violations of the law In Memorandum No -1 we outlined the wide-scale violations of law in our Republic which have continued to the present day despite the exposure of the crimes of the Stalin and· Beria eras ' Ve tried to bring to the attention of the world community the fact that the sharpest edge of the repressions and terror that -the punitive organs can bring to bear has been turned against the people who defend spiritual sovereignty in the various spheres of national and creative life This constitutes a scandalous violation of the Constitutions of the U S S R and the Ukr S S R the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the Helsinki Accords and other international pacts ratified by the Supreme Soviet of the U S S R We presented a list of several score prisoners of consicence in actuality there· are thousands of them -honest selfless courageous workers in the fields of culture science religion who languish in prisons and labor camps on the tenHory of neighboring Republics something unheard of in the practice of international law But before we could publish our documents the pro-curacy of the city of Moscow in cooperation with the Ukrainian KGB pounced on us during the night of December 23-24 1976 they conducted searches in the apartments of Group members M Rudenko Kiev 0 Berdnyk Kiev L Lukyanenko Chernihiv 0 Tykhy Donbas and I Kandyba Lviv During these searches all of the Group's documents were confiscated as were literary· archives and correspondence At the same time pornographic material and weapons were planted in the apartments which compelled us to predict· in ·a written· protest to the Procurator of the U S S R that some kind of pr0'c0cation was being planned against the members of the Group this became substantiated later In our letter addressed to the world community-to PEN International to Wester n communist-parties etc -we voiced our concern that the fierce attack on the Ukrainian Group to Promot ead-of-night searches threats surveillanceeven when taken separately from other facts is proof of the complete disregard by the hnreaucrnti structure· of the U S S R of t hose commitments which our country accepted in signing the Helsinki Accords This indisputable fact strengthened onr resolve to•continue our activity In Memorandum No 2 we again pcinted out the necessity of Ukmine's participation in the Belgrade Conference in 1977 as a sovereign European state In Memorandum No 3 we illustrated the· violations of the freedom of conscience in our Republic using as an example the tragic fate of the Christian and Cath'llic Y Ter'elya who has spent half bis life in labor canips and psychiatric bof nitals and_ now wanders from place to place in 'learcb of somewhere to stay and a job always under the never-sleeping eye of the KGB · · ' -Inn·dr 'ds of letterf an«· complaints rrom all corners of Ukraine began to nonr i'l' to the members of the Group as s_oon as people heard ahout its formation This f ict in itself is evidence of how widespread the violations of the law are in Ulfraine We are preparing a detailed report on this to ·be sent to the Government 77 of the Ukr S S R and to the signatories of the Helsinki Accords But the KGB again decided on a sudden attack on February 5 1977 the head of the Group Mykola Rudenko was arrested as was Group member Oleksiy Tykhy in whose case the search warrants were issued In this instance of the organs of the KGB and the procuracy of Donetsk Region the search warrant was signed by the procurator of Donetsk Region Noskov and approved by the Deputy Procurator of the Republic Samayev confiscated l I Rudenko's entire literary archives taking away even his scientific works on economy and cosmogony On that same day searches were conducted at the apartments of Group members Oksana l Ieshko and Nina Strokata as well as of M l farynovych M l iatusevych and the homes of their parents and relatives See attached supplement For three weeks the KGB did not allow M Rudenko's wife to bring him indispensible articles or any food to solitary confinement interrogation cell No 1 in Donetsk In addition for the first four days she was told absolutely nothing about her husband's fate Neither the wives nor the friends have yet been informed of the actual charges brought against M Rudenko and 0 Tykhy despite the fact that all members of the Group and dozens of their friends have been called for questioning to the Donetsk Administration of the KGB and by the Ukrainian KGB in Kiev Through all these interrogations there runs the implication that the arrested men have been called to account not for the creation of the Group to Promote but for something secret mysterious something the others know nothing about We categorically state that the interrogating organs do not have and cannot possibly have any materials that discredit those a rsrested aside from the Group's documents which are totally legal and which have been submitted for publication Furthermore we call the attention of the Procurator of the Ukr S S R and of lawyers of all countries to the gross violations of procedural Law in the prosecution of this case specifically Article 116 of the Code of Criminal Procedures of the Ukr S S R which requires that the investigation be conducted in the place where the accused and the majority of the witneFJses live Conducting the investigation in Donetsk is a legal absurdity and an act of investigative cowardice an attempt to remove from the capital of the Republic to outlying districts the juridical reprisal against a poet and thinker In recent days a new wave of repressions has rolled over Ukraine In Odessa art critic V Barladyanu has been arrested and searches have been conducted in the apartments of his wife of the Siry family and two other families that several times appealed to the Group to Promote with complaints ahont flagrant violations of the law with respect to them Thus not only the activity of the Group but even contact with it is considered a crime In a lightning blow the wife of political prisoner V Lisovy Vira and Nadia Svitlyclma were fired from their jobs und thus deprived of all means of subsistence merely for their acquaintance with members of the Group N Svitlychna has also been threatened with arrest because she has not y -t registered at a place of residence after being released from a labor camp this although she has been repeatedly denied her legal right to do so In its Memorandums Nos 4 5 and 6 in letters to the countries that will participate in the Belgrade Forum-77 to PEN International to the leadership of the U S S R etc the Group to Promote has called the attention of the world community to the complete lack of any guarantees in defense of Law in Ukraine which proves that the bureaucratic structure of the U S S R and the organs of internal security have mmrped the constitutionnl prerogatives of the Soviet of Deputies of ·workers and hecause of this the Fundamental Law of the State the Constitntion and all the more so the international agreements on Human Rights are not being implemented · What will happen now vm the movement in defense of Law be destroyed with the tacit approval of tlle signatories of the Helsinki Accords accompanied only by the sorrowfnl shaking of heads Or will the Belgrade Conference-77 call on those that violate laws and rights to answer We do not consider that world pnblic opinion should painfully react to EACH violation of rights In our conntry-every nation has its own trouhle11 similar to onrs Such a renction would be senseless and even dangerous to the movement in defPnse of La w for It wonlcl make this movement dependent on unknmyn forces and influences and would tear it from its own roots from the evolutionary development of the corn wiommess of Law in one' nation Gum nnters of the Law must be established HERE by demanding the unswerving implementation of the laws of the Ukr S S R and the U S S R 78 This is ·why we are· firmly committed to the continuation of our uneve Q stp1ggle to the end in- the sincere belief that the national will so oner oi later will co11firm the Rule 'of· Law in all spheres of thought -creative pursuit -and action ·Ukrainian Public Group to Promote the Implementation of the •Helsinki · Accords Match 15 1977 OLES BERD 1 'YK PETRO l-IRYHOREN f 0 • OKSANA MESHKC LEVKO LUKYANENJ CO l IYROSLAV l IARYN OVYCH l IYKOLl l ATUSEVYCH NINA STROKATA • SUPPLEMENT TO ME IWRANDUM NO 7 ve As h n e-already reported on l 'ehrnary 5 1977 organ · of the KGB 'in ·addi tion·to arresting l L Rudenko and 0 Tykhy conducted searches in the lloni es of many _member_s of the Group to Promote and their relatives · · · · In the apart1mmt- of M Rudenko Kiev · the literary and scientific arch_ives were completely devastated The KGB confiscated a volnme of·poetry _c irisisting of sol le 50 000 verses the manuscripts of a science fiction novel philosophical works on economy cosmogony etc M Rudenko's wife son Yuri and writer 0 Berdnyk a · member of the Group were subjected to personal searches 0 Berdnyk's literary archives were also almost completely confiscated In· the ap_artment of Group member O l leshko the KGB conducted not so muc_h a search ns a ront Im·estigntor Pnnkov of the Kiev proc1i'racy entered the premises like a true bnndit-he broke in through a window All books and things were turl ed npside down letters and manuscripts were confiscated· wholesale with no regard for their contents All the trash as Pankov expre8sed himself A versonal search of 0 l Ieshko was conducted forcibly the investigator ·held her arms fast while two women searched her · A search was conducted at the apartment of Group 1i1ember Nina _Strokata · __ · · who lives in exile n Tarnsa the R S ' S R In Drohohych a search was conducted in the apartment of l I Marynovych's mother L I l farynovych The warrant was issued separately in the naines of Marynov ych and Matusevych who lives elsewhere and was only visiting The action was conducted during the night When 1 -Iatusevych and Marynovych protested against a persona search they were taken to the headquarters of the militia where the search was made A record of the proceedings however was denied them Of course agents of the organs were there · · A search_ was conducted in the apartment of Matusevych's sister Tamila Kiev who had heen arrested in Vasylkiv and brought _to Kiev Letters documents the book 'l 'he Sword of Arey a camera and a photo-enlarger were confi cated -The home of l Ia tusevych's mother Anastasiya l 'edorivna in Vasylkiv was searche_ l SJ1e -was arrested at the school where she teaches At ·the time of the search her 8-year-old grandson was not allowed to go for a walk On that same day a search was conducted at the home of l farynovych's wife Rayisa Serhir ivna -· Serhiychuk village of Kalynivka Vasylkiv district During the search she was not allowed to feed her 9-year-old daughter and the daughter was not allowed to go for a walk · A _search_ was conducted at the apartment of Matusevych's wife Olha_ bmytrivna in - connection with the case of O Tykhy She and a guest Y Badzyo were personally· searched · The dacha of the Matusevych family was searched village of Shevchenko Va ylkiv district in the presence of Matusevych's father Ivan Petrovych who had-been brought there from his apartment in -Vasylkiv · A search was conducted in the home of Matusevych's wife's parents Heyko md Snshan Kiev The mother Anna Ivanivna Sushan fainted and as a result the search was conducted without the presentation of a V 'arrant and -without a · record of the proceedings - tiring the searches hundreds of objects were confiscated-books manuscripts notebooks letters etc In all cases· there were flagrant violations of -procedural law _ Ukrainian Public Group to Promote the Implementation of the ·Helsinki Accords March 10 1977 ll EMORANDU1 i NC' 8 On tile Per ecutiou of v ·Lisova 'Wife of a Political Prisoner · 'l'he name of V Vasyl Lisovy-philosopher courageous champion of Law-is known to the world puhlic He is• suffering in the labor camps of l 'erm Region for having selflessly defended hi country1nen senten ed for their beliefs Here we would like to draw the attention of the vashington-based Helsinki Guarantees for Ukraine Committee and the participating countries of the Helsinki Conference to the miserable and helpless ituation of the wife of this political priHoner Vira Lisova and her two children For many years she was 1memployed and lerl a beggar's existence I 'inally i he received temporary work But still she had no peace collahorators of the KGB regularly broke into her a11artment te1 orhi11g her psychologically threatening and frightening her chiJdren After her letters to the I 'rench Communist Party and other organizations in defense of her husband the organs of the KGB became rabid On March 4 of this yt•ar she was ordere l hy phone to come to the Ukrainian KGB in Kiev for a conversation he rel'used That same day a messenger brought to ller a summoning her to avpear 011 i larch 5 as a witness not however before an examining magi trate hut directly to the Ukrainian KGB She refused in vi w of the fact that the summons from a legal standpoint was groundless 011 i Iarch 9 while she was at work a plenipotentiary of the Ukrainian KGB who refused to give his name called her into the office of the deputy director of the Institute for the Organization of Lal or and Modernization of Industry He or lt'recl the administration officials to leave and proceeded with a psychologiral heating Here are some gems of his verbal eruption Yon are a dishonorable woman Yon take part in national activities just like your husband You pass abroad information This was a reference to a letter to G Marche You were at the -scndoff of Amalrik You kept contact with Rndenko Yon reproduced copies of -onr huslmncl' 'Open Letter ' You receive packages and help from nationalist onrces If you have the conscience of a Soviet person give them upT' V Lisova answered that if the packages were from hostile sou·rces the KGB could prohibit their deliYery The collaborator of the Ukrainian KGB replied that they have no such 11ower but that she herself was obliged fo do so Yon bitterly hate the KGB and the Soviet government You live in a hostile enYironment We fight for you We will be reporting to the procurator We can imprison you but we feel sorry for you '' V Lisova walked out of the office in a terrible state After taking medication she visited the procurator of the Republic who oversees the KGB vh re she wrote a statement about all this The procurator promised to pass oh her statement to the KGB for review At home V Lisova fell seriously ill Emergency and personnel diagnosed a pre-heart failure state Ref' t and treatment were vrescribed ' l he following day-more calls from the KGB and promises to continue the conversation after her recovery The personnel office of the Institute informed her that she was fired and that same day brought to her home her job registration book 'l'hus V Lisova-mother of two children a sick and unprotected womanfinds herself without work without any means of subsistence and under the n unocleau sword of the KGB The tyrannical power-mad top dog and complete lawlesf' ness exult triumphant When V Lisova promised to put in a·corilplaint with V Fedorclrnk chairman of the Ukrainian KGB she received the cyncial rPJJly Be sure to write also to Andropov We will stop right here These facts are sufficient to illustrate the revelry of lllwlessness in Ukraine · Ukrainian Puhlic Group to Promote· the Implementation of the Helsinki Ac 0rds March 1 977 0 BERDNYK 0 MESHKO L LUKY ANENKO J KANDYBA N STROKATA P HRYHORENKO 80 MEJIIORANDUM NO 9 To the Procurator of Ukraine On the Gross Violations of Law in the Investigative Case of M Rudenko The Procuracy of Ukraine sanctioned the arrest of the poet M Rudenko the leader of the Group of Promote Helsinki in Ukraine According to Article 116 of the UPK Code of Criminal Procedures of the Ukr S S R an investigation must be conducted where the suspect or the majority of the witness reside or where the crime took place Taking into account all the points specified in the UPK the investigation should be conducted in Kiev vhy has procedural Law been violated Of what concern is the formation of the Ukrainian Public Group to Promote the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords to the Donetsk KGB Administration and to its senior investigator Nahovitsyn who is in charge of the investigation and who summons scores of people to Donetsk from Kiev Chernihiv Lviv and so on It seems that we see here juridical abuse on the part of the organs of repression which are preparing a reprisal against the poet in secrecy from the public of Ukraine Inasmuch as the subject of discussion is the movement in defense of the law in the Republic our Group demands adherence to all procedural _norms and an open trial ve feel that the Ukrainian KGB in Donetsk HAS NO RIGHT to summon witnesses in a case involving the Group since the nucleus of the Group is in Kiev ve -asl yon to point out this gross violation of the law to the security organs March 18 977 OLES BERDNYK ill ember of the Ukrninian Public Group To Promote the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords S OLES BERDNYK To The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U S S R Moscow The Congress of the United States of America Washington · Copy The Helsinki Guarantees for Ukraine Committee in Washington Dr A Zwarun AN OPEN LETTER Honored Legislators of the U S S R and the U S A In signing the Helsinki Accords the two most powerful countries on Earth gave their Solemn Word that they would cooperate in tlie cause of safeguarding- peace security and Human Rights People with an honed sense of legality in different parts of the world received the Accords as a kindred cause ·and began to form groups to promote the implementation of these agreements Such a group appeared also in Ukraine a group which in its declaration pointed to instances of violations of the Law of our Republic But even before the declaration had a chance to be heard in the world blows rained upon the Group--numerous searches persecution threats and on February 5 1977 the arrests of the head of the Group the poet Mykola Rudenko and a Group member teacher Oleksiy Tykhy They were arrested with no warrant being issued with no indication of the substance of the crime For weeks now they have held Mykola Rudenko in o Donetsk dungeon without informing his family and friends about the reasons for his arrest -and forbidding his wife to send him e ·en the most indispensible things An ominous precedent All the standards of Law violated completely The organs of respression have returned to the ·practices of Beria's time the practices that were dam ed by the people What Helsinki Accords is it possible to speak of when a prominent poet and thinker and the author of the Economic Monologues in which he reveals for mankind a new understanding of the interdependence of Man and •the Cosmos when such ·a selfless human being has been brutally tossed into a dungeon as in the darkest periods of the Inquisition 81 In this can be clearly traced the purposeful actions of the antievolutionary forces which strive to destroy the efforts of the governments of the U S S R and the U S and the other signatories of the Helsinki Accords aimed at safeguarding peace and securing Human Rights It is imperative that the criminal acts of persecution against fighters for Law be resolutely investigated Putting forth my demand for such an investigation in accordance with the laws of friendship and brotherhood that have been practiced in Ukraine since ancient times I declare a hunger strike as a sign of pr-otest against the arrest of Mykola Rudenko and other fighters for Law ' 'he hunger strike will last until either Mykola Rudenko is released or com11etent organs announce in the press what he was arrested for and what they plan to do with him I will begin the hunger strike in March 1977 I ask the Helsinki Guarantees Committee in vashington to support me I ask other fighters for Law and all honest people in the World to join with me at least symbolically by demanding the release of Mykola Rudenko and other fighters for Law March 7 1977 Kiev Writer OLES BERDNYK Member Ukrainian Public Group To Promote the InpZementation of the Helsinki Accords To the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine V V Shcherbytsky Copy The Congress of the United States Copy The Helsinki Guarantees for Ukraine Committee in Washington Dr A Zwarun AN OPEN LETTER Volodymyr Vasylyovych For a few years now you have been informed about the situation I have found myself in since being expelled from the Writers' Union a beggar's existence a total ban on the publication of my works constant persecution by ·the security organs searches electronic surveillance provocations confiscation of my literary archives the impossibility of creative selfexpression And finally in line with Order No 31 dated August 13 1976 and issued by the Main Administration for the Safeguarding of State Secrets in Print of the Council of Ministers all my books even for children were destroyed removed from libraries and taken off the book market In its most recent search in December 1976 the KGB confiscated almost all of my literary archives-unfinished short stories philosophical works a writer·s diary etc Does world public opinion need more evidence that to the bureaucratic system of our country the Helsinki Accords are empty words When a fiction writer a dreamer a futurologist an author of several dozen books about the future about a New World of Love and Unity is crushed and debased before the public In spite of my numerous personal appeals to you for help -in unraveling my life's knot I have received neither help nor a reply There is no hope for renewing my creative work as a writer and without this I cannot contemplate further living I have but one solution-to emigrate with my family to the U S A or Canada from where I have received invitations There I could continue my work in the field of futurology ·· The alternative to emigration Dea-th I cannot breath in this atmosphere of lawlessness and vicious persecution In all sincerity I would rather not live in a foreign land but to patriotically await arrest or other forms of repression while living in poverty with a small child at the homes of others under the unflinching eye of the KGB-this my soul does not accept This drives me to a radical step on March 21 1977 I will begin a hunger strike until DEATH unless I receive your radical reply This is not a threat Volodymyr Vasylyovych It is simpty an escape from the- labyrinth of lawlessnes into which I was thrust by the iipologists of arbitrariness 82 I hold you personally responsible for whether or not I shall receive an an$wer this time Do not heed the bureaucratic whisperings that I_ am blackmailing the Central Committee I have forty days as do you after which every day may bring THAT GUEST who passes no one by In my situation I greet him for DEATH at this time is more merciful than men ·May fate keep you from the straits on which I and my colleagues in misfortune have befallen Sincerely OLES BERDNYK M crnbcr Ukr J inian Public aro-up To Prornotc the Irnplcrnentation of the Helsinki Accords March 18 1977 The following document Letter No Two was submitted to the Commission for the record by the Committee for the Defense of Soviet Political Prisoners P O Box 142 Cooper Station New York New York 10003 Tim UKRAINIAN GROUP To PR0 fOTE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE HELSINKI Acconns LETTER NUMBER TWO T o The Governments of the Ukrainian SSR and the USSR The Governments of the Participating States of the Helsinki Agreement The matter of preserving peace is not a matter solely for governmental leaders- it concerns all people Therefore it should be dealt with not only on governmental levels with the help of arms limitation agreements mistrust among peoples of different nations should be eliminated with tlie help of as many co11tacts as possible among citizens of different countries on an individual basis Our strength is in the progressiveness of our cause and the legality of our conduct Nevertheless we understand our weakness and the strength of the organized bureaucracy It makes use of a huge apparatus of repression against any opposition arrests prisons camps persecution after release from confinement Above all there is the problem Qf obtaining residence permits in order to live where one wishes Wives and husbands are often unable to register in a given city and therefore are unable to live together Some indfriduals suffer for years before they are reunited with their families This was the case with Bohclan Khrystynych · Ivan Kypysh Mykhaylo Horyn and mal y other Ukrainian dissenters ·Another means of repression is work In the absence of individual or private ownershi•p the only way to earn a living is to be employed by the only employerthe state The KGB uses this to force people of intellectual professions to work as coal stokers machinists electricians and so forth This is an effective means to deprive dissenters of an intellectual milieu where there could be response to their idea and -maintenance of the intellectual level of the dissenters themselves In addition this type of work provides only meager compensation and forces people to spend their free time devising ways to earn extra money Consequently -this means that very little time can be devoted to civic activity A ministrative surveillance censorship of mail house searches expulsion from work pressure on families and intimidation-these are all serious matters Due to these· tactics the Group was unable to collect more written facts Yet a number ·of letters and appeals did manage to reach us -and we are attaching extritcts from them on which we support our conclusions This information also requires us to do the follow'ing Inform the signatories of the Helsinki Accords and public opinion of gross violations 9f the Final Act Appeal to the governments of the Ukrainian SSR and the u S S R to curb their bureaucrat-yiolators of hµman rights in the Ukrainian SSR Documentation• of human rights violations compiled from letters and appeals which rea hed the Group from Ukrainians living in the Ukrainiau SSR and in other Soviet republics · 1 - Political prisoners 1 On April 14 1977 the wife of Yevhen Sverstyuk Lilya arri ed for a personal visit with her husband She had come from Kiev a distance of 3 000 kilometers The visit however was not permitted supposedly on the grounds that her bus- 83· band had had his visiting rights revoked Later she was granted permission to see him but only in the presence of a guard a_nd only providing that they speak in Russian She agreed to meet under these conditions but the labor camp administrators subsequently informed her that her husband had refused to a visit under these conditions Lilya left her husband declared a hunger strike to protest the illegel denial of his right to a personal visit Up to 20 individuals supported him in this On April 30 the head of the labor camp administration Polyakov sent Lilya Sverstyuk a telegram stating A visit will be permitted at the end of May-June It required a form of extreme protest a hunger strike by 20 people-to reverse the illegal decision of the camp administration 2 On May 15 1977 Valetyn Moroz declared a hunger strike protesting the denial of permission for a personal visit with his wife · · 3 Ivan Hel declared a hunger strike demanding better living conditions for his wife and daughter They live in an old and dark basement-like apartment and are being denied better quarters because Ivan Hel is a dissident II Psychiatric hosvitals The Berehiv regional court decided to once again confine Yosyp Terelya in psychiatric hospital for forced treatment Y Terelya had previously been imprisoned for 9 years during which time he was also forced to undergo treatment in psychiatric hospitals in 1976 he was released as a perfectly normal and healthy person III Exile Exile is a new form of imprisonment which is not necessarily less severe than standard imprisonment Exiles are doomed to a pitiful existence They are deprived of the most basic living quarters and of work An exile is essentially a prisoner without a camp 1 Volodymyr Vasylyak had previously served a 5-year term in camps in 1975 he was exiled to Tomsk oblast for three years After visiting a church in IvanoFrankivsk new charges were brought against him · 2 Mykola Kots age 45 higher education works at odd jobs under very difficult climactic and material conditions Provocations are constantly· being organized against hiin 3 Vasyl Stus writer and critic has been in exile in Magadan oblast since January 1977 he is forced to work under ground in a mine In one of his letters he writes I long for the camp He is very ill 4 Bohdan Chuyko Tomsk oblast has been in exile since·the end of 1976 after having previously spent 15 years in prisons He has no living quarters or money 'for· food A Group No 2 invalid he has no toes on either foot · He cannot provide himself with ·basic necessities since he is totally incapable of working The administration is deaf to the requests of exiles J t often tries to spiritually break them For an exile to obtain permission to visit the Ukraine dudng vacation is a fantastic accomplishment and the administration does e'l' erything possible block such visits · · ·' IV Permission to register and live in a city and securing employment · 1 Oleksander· Nazarenko incomplete higher education was imprisoned from 1968-1973 for his activities in defense of human rights and the ·rights· of Ukrainians For a long period of time after his release he was riot -permitted to register and live in Kiev He then moved to Skadovsk where he married 'and only then was allowed· to register He is employed as a watchman ·in a water works station He is being subjected to constant moral degradation His wife Lidia Huk a medical doctor was sentenced to 1½ years of imprisonment under Article 187 1 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR She is subjected to· · · persecutions false accusations threats with loss of job 2 Nadiya Svitlychna was released in 1976 after having served a 4-year sentence Since that time she has not been allowed to officially register in any city · Her seven-year ·old son whose residence permit was illegally revoked is also deprived of the right ·to live in Kiev and therefore cannot avail himself of medical treatment and services Svitlychna who has a higher education works as a yard keeper ·· · 3 Lev Lukyanenko a member of the Group to Promote bas bee'n under adminlstratlve··surveillnnce for over a year Although u lawyer he is forced to work as an electrician to 84 4 Ivan Dykiy and his wife were sentenced to 5 and 4 years in prison respectively and 5 years in exile For a long period of time Dykiy was not allowed to register for a residence permit and therefore could not live with his wife Later they were registered and allowed to live in Drohobych temporarily 6 months after which they were allowed to live in Stebnych 8 kilometers away 5 Mylrnla Berelavsky lives under liorrible conditions-7 people in a room of 18 square meters-and his material situation is very difficult 6 Stepan Kuroslyak who had served a 5-year sentence in prison camps is subjected to continuous persecution Following a provocation he was fired from his job at the Rubkovsky LMZ and has been unable to secure employment since the end of 1976 7 Kuzma Matviuk engineer is not allowed to hold the kind of job for which he is qualified by specialization and educational background He is under surveillance 8 Fyodor Klimenko is employed as a metal worker An attempt has been made on his life and he is under surveillance V As a result of his appeal for assistance to the Group Vasyl Barladian b 1943 in Moldavia art critic was penalized for his convictions he has been expelled from the Party not allowed to defend his dissertation and on March 12 1977 arrested by order of the Procurator's office In connection with his arrest the following Odessa residents had their apartments searched E S Danelian A V Golumbivkaya G V Mikhailenko A V Barladian and Serykh the latter without a warrant from the Procurator Vitaly Kalinichenko Dnepropetrovsk region was summoned to the regional Procurator's office on March 5 1977 where he was warned that he could be held responsible for the dissemination of Moscow and Ukrainian Group to Promote declarations In 1976 he was released after having served a sentence under Article 62 1 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR On April 23 1977 searches were conducted at the apartments of the following individuals in connection with the arrests of Group members 11 1 Marynovych and M Matusevych Raisa Sergiychuk Anastasia l iatusevych Lyubov l farynovych Nadezhda Marynovych Temila Matusevych Oleg Lapin Lyubov Kheine Hanna Kovalenko Evhen Obertas Mikhailina Kotsyubinskaya and Boris Antonenko-Davidovich On April 29 in the newspaper Literaturna Ukraina a slanderous mud-slinging article directed at M Kotsyubinskaya and B Antonenko-Davidovich was published The article written by Gornocaya entitled You Don't Get Money for Nothing appeared five days after the searches at the apartments of M Kotsyubinskaya and B Antonenko-Davidovich VL' The violation of the right of an attorney to defend and a client to defend himself ' The attorney Sergei Martysh of the Dernitskaya legal consultation office in Kiev officially accepted the task of preparing an appeal in the case of Aleksandr Sergienko but the lawyer was not permitted to familiarize himself with trial materials in K'GB archives He was denied access with the words It's not authorized because it's not authorized All the same the attorney wrote the appeal on the basis of old notes and according to memory he had defended A Sergienko in the regional court but he was forbidden to go to Vladimir Prison to c·onsult on the appeal with his client A board of attorneys sent the appeal via special channels but it got lost Later it turned out that the appeal had been handed over to the client in camp but taken away forcibly soon afterward along with attached handwritten notes ·All other papers pertaining to the case were also taken away from A Sergienko In order to deny him the possibility of appealing for review of his case in the future · OLES BERDNYK NINA STROKATA OKSANA MESHKO IVAN KANDYBA LEVKO LUKYANENK0 PYOTR GRIGORENK PY0TR•VtNS OLGA GEIK0 MATUSEVYCII IMPLEMENTATION OF THE HELSINKI ACCORDS U S POLICY AND THE BELGRADE CONFERENCE MONDAY JUNE 6 1977 Co11-c11nss10N oN SECURITY AND CoorEiuTION IN EuRorE TV ashington D O The Commission met pursuant to notice at 2 p m in roo 2172 Rayburn House Office Building Hon Dante Fascell chamnan presiding In attendance Commissioners Fascell Pell Fenwick Simon Buchanan Leahy Bingham Case ·and Dole Also present R Spencer Oliver counsel and staff director Alfred Friendly Jr deputy director OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN FASCELL Mr F ASCELL The Commission will come to order Today's hearing closes the first round of the Commission's public review of implementation of the 1975 Helsinki accords So far this year the Commission has heard 55 witnesses in 13 open hearings received hundreds of pages of written submissions for its record surveyed the experience and opinions of recent emigres from the Soviet Union of U S businessmen conducting trade with the East and of' Vestern journalists working there Next month the Commission will begin to issue its analysis of the record it has compiled Our goal will be to describe the impact the accords have had on patterns of conduct in the areas where the 35 signatory states accepted common standards of behavior Judging by the testimony accumulated so far it is clear that the spirit of Helsinki has been proclaimed much more often that it has been honored But I guess that is not unusual East and vVest the image of implementation has taken precedence over the reality of compliance-especially in the fields of policy and practice which require positive unilateral action by governments But if the record is-by and large-a disappointin one the process which was set in motion at Helsinki is certainly healt11y We are able now to discuss with each other candidly if sometimes pointedly and constructively issues about which diplomats before could only whisper That I would submit is progress And that I would subin it is change And I would also add that I think it is healthy change The process and progress of course is not complete but it certainly seems lillportant to preserve it and to strengthen it vVe look forward then today to the testimony of the Secretary of State to define where we have been and where we are going We are 85 86 very pleased to have this opport mity to discuss Yit 1 him the possibilities we have open to us to remforce the Helsmln process and to augment its results · So Mr Secreta ry and Ambassador _Sherer a -cl Mr N1 etz we arc very happy to welcome you here to tlus Comm1ss10 me tmg to enter into this-Tliscussion with us ·to ·complete our record· m ·tlus first rqund ·of Co11imissioi a ti vity · · · · · · ' Mr Secretary -the floor is yours and we ·will be delighted to hear from you STATEMENT OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE HON CYRUS R VANCE ACCOMPANIED BY MATTHEW NIMETZ COUNSELOR AND AMBASSADOR ALBERT SHERER JR ' ' Mr · VA ¢E Thank you very much Mr Chairman i tnd members of the Commission - · · You ·have all received the· administration's report ori'thc irrn_ ilemcntation9f the Final Act-of the Helsinki Conference Today l want to und rlihe as did the_ re ort the contim g _im Portance f he effort which egan 9 t elsi ki · · _ · You are fu lly aware of this admmistrat10n's mtere c t m proi notrng more stable and mutually beneficial relations 'between the· peoples of the East and-Wes t The Helsinki Final Act provides one framework for such cooperation · · ·· 'Y oµ·- are also aware of our commitment-to honor and promote the rights of indiyi l uals the humanTights of all peoples ·no matter what t4eir _poJitical or social_ origins and affiliati01_1s ' l'he Confer nce on Se9unty and_ Cooperation m -Europe has provided a multilateral mechanism to pursue these aims · · Before discussing·_ our plans for the forthcoming meeting in Belgr lde I want to convey my thanks for the close working collabora_tion achieved between the executive and legislative branches of our Government on the many political economic and humanitarianissues inv lved in the Helsinki accords · I ·wrote you 3 months ago Mr Chairman to say that I am most anxioµs to bring about a relationship of full cooperation between the Sta te Department and the Commission I think that this relationship has been achieved You and your colleagues in the Congress have played a very helpful an c nstr uctive role vVe are looking for varq to your personal contnbut10n m the work of the Belgrade review conference · The spirit of collaboration has also marked our relations ·with our allies ··at the Geneva and Helsinki phases of CSCE _as well as in our prepapttory work for the forthcoming review process · · Let' ine now state very briefly the objectives which we seek at our Belgrade meeting · We seek full implementation of all th commitments contained in the Helsinki Final Act None can be called more binding more vital than t e ot ers All thr e of the so-cal ed bas ets are important We seek mcremental improvements m relat10ns between East and vVe t pn all the front S surveyed at el inki political economic scientific cultural security and humamtarian 87 ·we seek to move forward on all these fronts simultaneously the £re er flow of people and ideas is as importa1it to long-t rm 's _c1 1rity and cooperation as for example advance notice of ma1or m1htary maneuvers the humanitarian pledges at Helsinki are as i po1'tant as say the promises of greater commercial cooperation · · There will be consideration of new proposals But·we m1 st-1iot be diverted from assessment of how fully the specific undertakings of He sinki have been ·carried out by all the signatories · ·· This is an ambitious agenda There may well be differences iii understanding and priority these ca11 be discussed in good faith in hopes of narrowino- such differences · · · · · But such discusr ions cannot serve as a diversion or a cloak for inact1mi The CSCE Final Act was approved by 35 heads· or· state and government after 3_ years of intense negotiations Undertakings of si1ch gravity cannot s_ubsequently be relaxed or overlooked · ' At Belgrade we will assess on the spot how best to be effective and persuasive in pursuing our objectives Between public diplom acy and quiet diplomacy we ·will strive for maximum practical impact Ve will avoid grandiose new proposals that have little chiuice of being acceptable Propaganda· ploys debating points have· no place · · ''' · _ · in our strategy We will state our goals and our assessments clearly Vithout polemics · · · · · · · · · ·' · It would serve no one's interests if such serious and ·_far-reaching questions were dealt vith in anything other than a serious and straightforward manner · ·· ·· · The report I have' transmitted to the Commission on behalf of the President gives you a detailed assessment of what has been done and whht h'as not been done · ' · Let m_e say from the start that no nation's record is perfect · and we will ·accept constructive_ criticism of our own record j11st as we ask others to do · · ·· · _ vyhen I outlined he_ admin_istrati il's human rig-l ts policy at_ the Umvers1ty of Georgia m April I said that a dec1s10n whether and how to act in the cause of human rights is a matter for informed and careful judgment No mechanistic· formula produces an automatic ai1swer · So it will be in our decisions about working for implementation of the commitments contained in the Helsinki Final Act those· dealing with our political economic and military relations as well as those affecting human rights · Respect for the undertakings solemnly accepted at CSCE is an effort to which our Governmentis firmly committed in the full knowl edge that the pursuit of security and cooperation in Europe poses a test of our perseverance as much as of our ideals I am confident that we will together persevere Thank you Mr Chairman I am prepared to answer any questions that the Commission may have Mr FASCELL Thank you Mr Secretary Ve appreciate that statement of broad policy within which the United States will be guided I want to take the opportunity while you are here to express the appreciation of the Commission for the splendid cooperation hat we 88 have received from you personally and others in your Department not only in carrying on the work of the Commission but also in carrying on the work with respect to preparation for Belgrade There has been a really fine working relationship and we are delighted to have been a part of it I cannot pass up this opportunity to say however that 1 hope that whatever the processes are to get the executive commissioners named They will be completed soon I gather the matter is held· up in the other body for some reason and I do not know what it is · Mr VANCE We are prepared to move very promptly on that · · Mr FASCELL Thank you Mr Secretary Let me ask you how you view the role of the Commission as far as the Belgrade Conference is concerned · · · Mr VANCE We would welcome participation of the members _of the Commission in the Belgrade Conference · ·· · Mr FASCELL Do you mean as delegates of the United States Mr VANCE Yes as delegates of the United States and as members of the U S delegation · Mr F ASCELL We certainly appreciate that and ve welcome the opportunity to participate in that fashion as we are able All c f us have great interest in this · ·· Mr VANCE Might I add also Mr Chairman that we also look forward to the participation of the staff of the Commission-not only in the final meeting which will be held next fall but very actively in the preliminary meeting which will be starting on June 15 Mr FASCELL Of course we are prepared to cooperate in that fashion Mr Secretary and the members of our staff will be part of that working delegation The names of our staff who will be a part of that working delegation will be submitted very quickly · Mr Secretary the report that was transmitted is certainly a straightforward report It seems to me that it calls the shots p retty straight I do not think I misread that report in terms of the violations as the United States saw them or the areas that needed improvement or even some of the accomplishments There were fairly well detailed specifics in the report So I want to compliment you and whomever prepared it on behalf of the President In submitting that report to the Commission and to the public you performed an extremely useful function But it leads to this question There has been some discussion and some fear among some persons that the United States would in some way back down on Basket Three because of the sensitivity that is involved not only with respect to specific cases but also because it seems to have evoked a great deal of repression in the Soviet Union and other Eastern bloc countries What does the Secretary of State say about that kind of allegation Mr VANCE Let me say that the United States will not back down on its p sition with respect to the question of human rights and the items m Basket Three w·e believe strongly that the ouestions of human rights are appropriate and proper subjects to be discussed between states We believe that the Final Act itself makes this very clear and we intend at the Belgrade meeting to review the· implementation in Basket Three in detail and with the same care and seriousness that we will the items in the other two Baskets 89 Let me say again however that we will do this without ·pol mics but in a proper straightforward and serious way Mr FASCELL Mr Secretary personally I am happy to hear that assessment the statement and the reassurance I think all of the Commission is I also agree with your policy with regard to polemics I see absolutely no useful purpose in a debate filled with acrimony and recrimination This is a serious matter and at a meeting of sovereign governments where everything must be done absolutely by consensus so that any one government has a veto automatically-I think that is the only sensible way to approach it I also must say that I personally agree with your policy guideline about a two-track approach on this very important problem-whether it happens to be Basket Three or any other baskets That is ve must be able to deal effectively on a so-called quiet diplomatic level but we must never discount public diplomacy as being an effective part of the implementation that private diplomacy can brin¥ about I gather that is exactly the way you feel about 1t Mr VANCE That is exactly the way we feel about it Mr F ASCELL All right Congressman Buchanan Mr BucHANA Thank you Mr Chairman Mr Secretary I would like to join the chairman in commending the approach reflected in your statement It seems to me that while there will be whatever approach we take continuing charges of interference in internal affairs I assume you would concur that the signatories to the Helsinki· ac cords made it the business of the other signatories to inqutre into performance in the areas of agreement including Basket Three Mr VANCE I do sir · Mr BucHANAN I think your approach should be as winning a one as may be possible and I commend you for it · · Mr F A SCELL Congressman Simon Mr Sn i oN Thank you Mr Chairman Again Mr Secretary I would like to commend your basic attitude Propaganda ploys and debating points have no place in our strategy No nation's record is perfect a nd we accept constructive criticism of our own record I think your fundamental approach is sound I also like your desire to move forward Do we have any indication from the Warsaw Pact countries that they share this concept of moving ahead in Belgrade Mr VANCE Let me respond briefly if I may and then I n iight ask · · Ambassador Sherer to comment I have discussed the Belgrade Conference with a number of par ticipants who will be active there and have told them the general nature of our approach namely that we intend to out our emphasis on a complete review of the implementation of the Helsinki accords and that we intend to do it without polemics and that we would hope and expect that they would act in a similar fashion The ones that I have talked to have 1ndicated to me that that is their intention I hope that is the case Bud Mr F ASCELL Ambassador Sherer Mr SHERER Thank you Mr Chairman I might jqst add that if there is any difference in approach between the East and the West 02-302-77-7 90 that we have detected so far it is that perhaps the Eastern side is more 'interested in looking forward rather than looking back hird at implementation whereas we believe in the words of the Final Act in which a thoroug review of implernentation is called for · · · · · Mr SIMON _ If I may follow through on ·one further question here There are those who say that our statements on human '·righ ts your statement at the University of Georgia foi· example-our inphasis on Basket Three in fact has been counterproductive vithiri ·the Soviet Union The case of Mr Shchara1isky is given as the most recent example · · · · · · · · ·' · How would you respond to tha charge · · · ·· · · '- · Mr VANCE _I would respond by saying that one ·camiofjudge the 11 tim l te effect of our statement with respect' to human rights and the a tions whi h we tak with respect to ll l lan _rights inclndin cihiet · · · · ' · d1plomaey Ill the short run · One has to judge this qv r a· period of time And I wanffo emphac size that in measuring the achievements of the Helsinki accords one has to look at it in the same way do not think that ni e cap tdke a ook at it in this moment afone and _say it has either Peen _a _succ ss or a failure I think what you hay now is a mixture of thii i 'We ·have some slight movement forward in certain areas we have ho movement in others and we have regression in others '· ' But I think that a process has be en started as the chairman incli_cated and that we must stay with that process and continue to press what we believe to be correct One of the ways of doing this is'through the review process which we will be· engaged in at the_ Belgrade · ·· · Conference · · · · So my short answer to your question is I think it is t oearly t-o draw any conclusions·and I believe in the long run that tJhis i the oursethc one we are following which we must follow both beo use it is morally right and because I think i1 1 the long run it wtlll a hieve proper internati9nal objectives · · · fr SIMON I might just say that I concur in that judgment ' T hank you Mr Chairman · · Mr F ASCELL Mrs Fenwick Mrs FENWICK Thank you Mr Chairman · · Mr Secretary your Georgia speech was an encouragement and a wonderful thing for all of us Mr VANCE Thank you Mrs FENWICK And I particularly treasure two words that you have used twice now-once written and once spoken serious· and straightforward Serious implying the responsibilities that we carr_v and the need for the proper application df our principl¢1 -to eiich specific case as it turns out But straightforward-in that we will not yield Mr Secretary Because after all Mr Brezhnev's speech of March 13 clearly showed that he still clings to the ideological strnggle to his right to intervene with armed force wherever he thinks it wiU not be resisted too stiffly Surely that gives us equal right with equal calm and confidence and determination to assert our unswerving devotion to human rights in the same spirit It can be done with equal calm_ and confidence more than that we never signed a µocnment recognizing their right to ·an ideological struggle or their right 1 91 to march into other peoples' com1tries They di sign the _acc rd that £ ave us the right to be concerned about human nghts Mr Secretary what do we say to some of these cases-the case of a professor in the University of Virginia married with full ac cord of the Soviet Union authorities in 1974 His wife cannot get c mt Re11i1ification of families-what· does it mean vVhat relationship is closer than husband and wife How do we improve matters a· little bit for these no t so spectacular human beings- -not great ballerinas or physicists How do we-for Mr Shchar nsky too Mr VANCl I think we must just contmue to persevere m OU ' d1scusRions with the countries directly involved in particular kinds of cases Sometimes we will do this by public statement sometimes by quiet conversations and I think one will ee if one does that there- will be some successes I will just take the case of-what may seem in a way a small c·asethe 12-children in Czechoslovakia · · · · · ' · ' Mrs FENWICK Yes i 1 r YANCE • It may seem small because it ·is only 12 peopl M1 9 FENWICK No it is not small ·· · Mr VANCE It is not small Mrs ·FENWICK No · Mr ·VANCE And I think that the individual cases mus't l e kept after and 'if do then maybe there is a chance of affecting what happens · · • · Mrs FENWJ CK It seems to me that detente can be conducted with the one hand and our basic concern for human rights with th other hand just as they expect to be a ble to do We too ought to be able to expect it · Thank you Mr Secretary Mr V ANOE Thank y m Mr F ASCELL Mr Bmgham Mr BiNGHAM Thank you Mr Chairman It is a pleasure to elcome you Mr Secretary and Ambassador Sherer as well as Mr Nimetz who has J reviously appeared before us There 1s just one matter in your statement that I wanted· to ask about because I read it with a llttle surprise and that is that among the objectives that you indicate you will seek at the Belgrade meeting will be consideration of new proposals Mr VANCE Yes sir · Mr BINGHAM My recollection was that the Helsinki accords themselves did not contemplate consideration of new proposals at a follow-up conference and I think previously and in our discussions we had sort of assumed that this would get us away from the 1 3trict pursuit of the follow-up conference as foreshadowed in the original accord which would put us in a strong position to insist on implementation of the original accord Mr VANCE My recollection is that it does provide not only for review of implementation but also provides secondarily for 'the con icleratipn o new proposals particularly built upon the question of implementation Thirdly the topic on the agenda would be the question of what follows on_ after Belgrade we 92 I think that it is appropriate to take a limited nmpber of new initiatives if you want to call them that but I do not tlunk that we can let ours lves be thrown off the track by getting so invo ve with new initiatives that we do not stick to the main purpose wluch 1s the question of a review of implementation v-e have ourselves at this point along with our colleagues in the vest under consideration some 40 'Proposals-new proposals We will undoubtedly want to take a few of those proposals we think would be wise and constructive and put them on the table there I am sure that there will be some put on the table by our Eastern colleagues I think it would be a mistake to exclude-Mr BINGHAM You do anticipate that Mr VANCE Yes and also by neutral countries as well Mr BINGHAM I see Mr VANCE 'We have been in contact as you know with the neutral countries as well as with the Soviet Union and some of the other Warsaw Pact countries and we have been in consultation with quite a few of our colleagues who will be there from the 1 onaligned states So I do expect some new proposals But what I say 1s that we should not let ourselves get involved in grandiose new proposals which wi_ll take us down a frnitless track but try to concentrate on those which really do make _sense and which will iri the spirit of the basic accords continue to move us forward ·· · Mr BINGHAllI Ambassador Sherer has said that the East European coui1tries 'H I understood you correctly Ambassador Sherer would be tending to focus more on the future than on the past Did you have 'in mind consideration of new proposals in that regard ·· · Mr SHERER No Mr Congressman What I had in mind is sqmething that we have heard third-hand from Soviet authorities and that is that they have in mind some sort of a political corice'Pt that they would like to introduce even at this preparatory meeting which is supposed to be dealing with four very specific subjects · · vVe have heard that they intend to introduce a political concept which will mean let us not look backwards-let us only look forward I think we want to stick to the language of the F-inal Act and talk ·about the things the Final Act says that we should talk about · Mr BINGHAM Mr Secretary as you know there has been some concern expressed here on the Hill and elsewhere that we should try to see that our own record with regard to Helsinki is as·good as possible The McCarran-Wa lter Act has frequently been mentioned in this regard as a part of our laws that seems to be in conflict with Basket Three _ Do you have any comment for us on that either in terms of the current policy being follqwed by the Department in the administration of that act or in terms of possible revision of the act · · Mr VANCE Yes I do First let me say that the CSCE proposals or provisions on travel and contacts among individuals and organizations ·a re some of the clear 'Provisions that exist in that document We believe that our performance in this area compares favorably with other countries However we are currently reviewing our visa practices as I think you all know · vVith respect to visa provisions for Communist Party members they are as you point out governed by the Immigration and Nationality 93 Act There is a provision however that waivers can be made by the Secretary of State In implementing the waiver proposals we have been g nded by the long-standing policy which was made clear at the Helsmki C mference on the granting of visas in the labor area As you know tlus va specifica11y stated and made I think very very clear at the Helsmki Conference As a result of that we have been following that procedure with respect to visa waivers in the time since this administration has been in office However the whole visa question is as I said under consideration in the executive branch right now Mr BINGHAM Thank you Mr Chairman Mr FAsCELL Senator Dole Mr Dorn Thank you Mr Chairman Mr Secretary I appreciate very much your statement which I have read and I think my other colleagues the Senate side may be involved in a rollcall that will probably delay their attendance In a general way beyond assuring a full and frank d1scuss1on of what has happened since the signing of the accords do we have any additional high priority objectives to achieve in Belgrade-in addition to a full and frank discussion of the 2-year history Mr VANCE Well our basic objective is to forward two fundamental principles one is improving the relationship between states and the other is improving the lot of the individual citizen in each of these countries So all of our work is directed toward achieving those basic purposes The question then arises of how do you best do that We think that von best do it by concentrating as we believe is intended by the docu1nent ·itself on the review of implementation We think it is also possible however to discuss some new proposals in connection with that review if they be of a limited number and if they really do build upon the structure of the Helsinki accords vVe also think it is important however to sketch out what the postBelgrade regime wiU be I think if one looks and sees what is happening now as we approach Belgrade one can begin to see bits and pieces of increased progress just from the mere fact that the Belgrade Conference is coming Therefore I think we would welcome at the Belgrade Conference not only the continuation thereafter of bilateral relationships seeking further implementation but the setting of a date for a similar Belgrade-type conference in the future so as to keep that kind of prod upon all of us to make sure we go forward Mr Dorn In line with your statement about progress being made Given the vocal activism on the part of some dissidents and the repression of these activities is it possible to draw a balance sheet Do you think the Helsinki accords have promoted or harmed the rights of those who have had their hnman rights imperiled Mr VANCE As I indicated earlier Senator I think that one must judge this in the long run and over a period of years I think that if we go country by country and case by case the answer will be ·in some cases yes and in otlwr cases no I think it is too short a period of time to draw a specific balance sheet and 'it would be perhaps misleading to on 94 But I come back and emphasize the fact that I have no doubt in my own mind that across-the-board the fact that we have the Helsinki accords has beeh a positive fact and has improved the lot of individuals by and large across the spectrum · Although I must concede in certain areas in certain countries you will find that there are retrogressions and not even a holding of the position that was obtained before But on balance I would say clearly that the Helsinki accords have been a positive factor Mr DOLE Just in one specific area_ __that of Shcharansky-we hear that he is being charged with treason and linked to the CIA and of course the State Department has already expressed its concern Do you believe it serves any useful purpose or is it necessary for American officials to speak out further on his case before any formal charges are actually nrnde · Mr VANCE That is a difficult question to answer vVe have made very clear-very forcibly our views with respect to this matter It is as I understand it now in the hands of the comt there I think it really has to be an individual decision on the rpart of each individual as to what he or she thinks under those circumstances is best · Mr DoLE ·But you do not plan any statements or any further-Mr VANCE Not at this time - · Mr DoLE lam wondering if there is any guidance for the rest of us Can we be helpful with public statements or is that a judgment you say we must make · Mr VANCE Tthink you really must at this point We are going to continue to observe for the moment and see what happens but again I think this is really a question of individual judgment Mr DoLE -Arid finally-this may have been touched on and I do not want to haye the wrong impression Has there been any change in the attitude of this administration Has it been toned down any with refe rence to hmnan rights or does the President feel just as strongly or has it become more selective ' Mr VANCE There should he no question about that The President feels' just 'as ·strongly and he f l lis very very deeply as do all of us that this is a fundamental questjon which I have said inany times is part of the fran1 ework of our Constitution and a strand in the fabric of our society which is of gre i t irrip r tance And that we will continue -- ' a Mr Dor E So that s ame standard would apply to country like Cuba where there may be political prisoners and perhaps some ignoring of hµman rights before we get into any normalization of relations with a country like Cuba or Vietnam or any other Cmnmunist country · Mr VANCE The principles of human rights it seems to me are_ international Anybody who is a member of the United Nations clearly is undertaking the responsibility to act in this area I think this is a fundamental issue to be discussed _among states and there is no reason we should step away from that at_all · - Mr DOLE Particularly in reference to Cuba where we seem to be extending a hand of friendship would it be fair to say that a precondition· of· any further normalization would be some demonstration 1 95 positive demonstration by the Castro govemment concerning political prisoners-human rights Mr VANCJ Let me say with respect to Cuba that we have taken a couple of steps which I think ·ere constructive steps One is the signing of the Fishing Treaty and the second is agreement with respect to interest sections in embassies in each of the capitals Again I think this is a positive step There are a nnmber of questions which remain between us and one of those is the human rights question They all must be discussed as we move in a measured way in our discussions with Cuba Mr DoLE And finally would it be fair to assume then that we are not going to plunge into anything without their intervention in Africa and human rights questions being resolved • Mr VANCE That is another item to be discussed between us As I said we plan to move in a measured way and there are a number of items w hich we will be discussing with them Mr F ASCELL Senator Oase Mr CASE Thank you Mr Chairman Mr Chairman Mr Secretary and your associates my apologies for being in and out vVe had a vote since you started and there may be another It must be very frustrating for you to give up your precious time for what may appear to be dilatory attendance by the members of the Commission It is caused by matters beyond our control Mr VANCE I understand Mr F ASCELL Will you yield at that point Mr CASE Yes Mr FASCELL All of those lights mean that the House Members are going to have to go We have a series of rollcalls on I do not know how many qills w·e will leave the Secretary to the tender mercies of the othe r body with Cochairman Pell in charge and we will go to the rollca 11 and come back as quickly as possible Mr VANCE Thank you Mr Chairman · Mr CASE Is there a 10-minute rule Mr Chairman Mr PEJ L No I think not unless we find we need one Mr CASE In that case will you inform us when we have used that time Mr PELL Yes Mr CASE There is only one thing Mr Secretary that really concerns us related to our discussions with the executive branch at this time It has been touched upon by my colleagues on the Commission and most recently by Senator DoJe That is whether this is going to be ·an exercise in who can be the nicest to the other side ·and how we can show t J1at all the world is one-or will it be a 1·eal airing of the situation particularly in respect to Basket Three I think I speak for most members of the Commission as well as rnembflrs· of the Renate Foreian Relations Committee -and the Senate generally when I say I hope that it will ·be a real effort to demonstrate J- hat we m ean _what we say about human rights and the specifics of the Helsinki accords in that area I do not see how we can do this without talking aboi1t specific cases and l QO not see how we can talk 'about specific cases without raising 96 the hackles of the people involved on the other side I expect that they would talk about or attempt to talk about our failures in this area I think this will be a very wholesome thing because it will show among other things I think what the difference is between what we mean by human rights and what they mean by human rights It may illustrate to a useful degree the difference between the East and the West in these matters I said this morning to your associate that you probably were not the right people to handle these negotiations because your job is to get along with the other side and to accomplish things not by indirection but in spite of themselves I am not sure that it can take into its jurisdiction the matter of what 'are really in the very very highest sense of the word confrontations · · There is confrontation here The ultimate confrontation is between the system of the East and the system of the West Unless we I think really treat this as involving that I do not think we are doing what at least I believe the Congress considers ought to be done Maybe in the eyes of the world and maybe in the eyes of God it is just as bad £or a man to go hungry for instance or not have a job as it is for a government to put people in the insane asylum in order to keep them out of their way or to torture them or not to allow them the kind of due process that we regard as true or to maintain a society in which peon e are afraid-deeply afraid Maybe those things in the cosmic sense ·are equivalents but I suggest that they are not equivalents I do not mean that we are in favor of starving people We are not as you know But we do not eqmtte the holding of a job 'as the same as the rights of a human being to be free from bei g whipped or tortured or driven insane or ihaving his_ sanity put into great danger · To have this brought out in Belgrade would make the accords worthwhile And I think not to do it would be to just go through an exercise and waste an awful lot of good people's time I h ive not talked in a precise wav I have' aid some thing-s loosely but I have stated my concern at having this'thing run by a bunch of professional dip omitts which is what you fellows are supposed to be Some of you are only part time Laughter And I li ke both kinds and we nerd both kinds b11t yo11 are still in that snot and I do not know whether you can break free from it Franklv I hav e not seen yet the kind of spirit to ave the knock-down dra '-ont real confronta tion that I think is 'alled for at this sta e Ve h we a dr n di sagreemPnt about thiR I think tmd m t ybe that is the rra on the Commission does exist and is going- to lw represented in Belgrade It is not a matter of anything personal at all It is jnst a matter of recognizing that there is a difference between the kind of a job that you have to do and that we have to do l fr VANCE Perhaps I might respond to that if I could Mr CASE He would have re spo µded soon r if I had not kept on talking Laughfor · Mr VANCE Let me assure you that we will prnl e a real effort to carry forward on what we and you have said· about onr obligations in this confer ence Our ommitment to human right and to reviewing the implementation of the Helsinki Accords on human rights fa drep 97 and abiding and I think it is just as deep and abiding as that of the Congress Mr CASE I will not interrupt yon again but I never question thatit is a question of what we are supposed to do at this conference Mr VANCE And I can assure you that we will be covering speci fie cases as well as generalities in the discussions vVe have said and I repeated here again today and will repeat it again and again that we believe that a foll and frank review of the implementation in all of the areas including the human rights area is our task and it is necessary and right that we should do so Now I do however repeat again the caution that I do not think it ought to be done in a polemical fashion and if by knock-down dragout you mean· it is going to be polemical then we do have a disagreement I do not think that is what you mean but if it is-Mr CASE I do not mean we should wave brickbats or whatever they are-I have heard of them for a long time and I never was quite sure what they were-maybe an Irishman can tell me Mr LEAHY I will fill you in later on Mr CASE Or get into physical combat about this thing at this stage but I do mean that we may have to use sharp words and indicate disagreement-and not only that but make it clear that we arc in disagreement and not attempt by using the same word for different meanings to paper over what I think is a very deep difference that exists Mr VANCI The words which I would use would be frank and straightforward Mr CASE Thank you Mr Chairman Mr PELL Senator Leahy Mr LEAHY Thank you Mr Chairman Mr Secretary I also want to apologize for stepping out at one point vVith all of our efforts here in both the House and the Senate to set an orderly pace for the Government the country and the rest of the world we have somehow overlooked the fact that it would really help things a lot if we could do the same for ourselves and I suspect sometime within the next century or so we just might do that I think that there may have already been a question asked of you on this I heard Senator Dole asking one as I came in and I was delighted with your response that the President will not case up on his statements on human rights I suspect that we are going to be focerl both in individual cases and in other ways with pressure for the administration of the U S Government to ease off on our position on human rights I hope that we will not and I have the utmost faith both in you sir and in the President that we will not I am yery concerned about the arrest of l fr Shcharansky in the Soviet Umon I understand our Government has made assurances that he is not in any way involved with the Government of the United States or with anybody in the Intelligence Agency Is that correct Mr VANCE We have said thatthere was no truth to the allegations that he was involv d with the Central Intelligence Agency Mr LEAIIY That is my understanding I met Mr Shcharansky i11 Moscow a·couple of years ago 'and brought him letters from his wife 98 -This is a case that concems ml very much bccanse I suspect that w·o_lJ ably because of the attention given to him he is in the si'tuatio11 where he is now I also hope that we do not give in to pressure 011 indiyidnal areas because of that and I suspect that Mr Shcharansky toulcl be one of the first to encoi1rage that · · _ Mr Secreta ry I -realize it is impossible to decide at this point-if you even know at this point-just what will happen in Belgrade Are you hqpefnl for a realistic meeting or arc yo11 concern d that inaybe it will just breakdown to polemics _and accusations on bof4 si l es with very little coming out of it I realize this is a very broad question but what are the indications that you are getting now this lose to the time we begin the rneeti11g · • Mr VANCE On the basis of the discussions tlrnt we have b een able to have both with the Eastern Bloc countries and with the n'01 a igncd conn tries at this point people are saying that they want a se1 ious discussion which will accomplish _ real objectives and for the morrnnt I fhink one must take that at face vrtlne ' Vhether vhen· one gets into the actual debate this will break down of course I could _i10t predict at this point It is always a possibility I hope it will not br ak clown because I th ink that would not be in the interests of any oft lie parties to the conference nor ultimately in the interests of the rea l hoped-for beneficiaries namely the people of these countries · Mr LEAHY In that regard have we been making concentrated efforts in our own country to review our own accord with _the Helsinki Agreement-are we looking at the McCarran-vValter Act for example and the funding of expanded cultural educational and ·scientific ex changes Are there not some areas where we could say that we· n i ay not have done all we could have done · · · Mr V ANGE Yes we are very much involved in taking a look at this As you know we have a ready taken steps to lift travel restrictions because we felt that this was a necessary and desirable step that we must take We are currently reviewing the visa restrictions problem and we are going to take a look across-the-board at our performance As I indicated in my statement none of us is perfect ·' · Mr LEAHY I understand vVhat would you feel following a conference like this-and I realize that we do not want to limit all discussion to Basket Three by any means--but Mr Secretary when a coriference is over what would be the kind of thing that you could look at to say that we have been successful And I suppose yo1i rhight almost put that in a reverse what type of things _would make_ the lJnite l States quest10n whether we should really contmue the effort r whether we may have an agreeme p t that is worth more in the value of the paper than in what is going to come out of it · Mr VANCE Let me say two things in answer to that I would look first to see whether or not there had been a realistic and frank revie v of implementation where the facts had been laid oi1t on the table on both sides and had been debated in a realistic way If that is done t think it will highlight the deficiencies and that would be a very positive factor · · Sec nd I feel that we should set up as a result of the Belgrade Conference in the fall ' some sQrt of _follow-on mechanis J c again 99 puts a signpost before ns in the road so that everybody lpiQWS that they are going to be coming to another point whore they ai e gqing to have to stand up and be counted-as -to whether or not-they have or ha vo not made progress in these various areas · Those are two specific items A third area would be that if we had a few new proposals that were indeed 1 constructive I think thabvoulrl be another fact to be measured against the yardstick But again I would caution thi t we not get lost in considering new propo sals ·and neglect the real purpose which is review of implementation Mr LEAHY And that means each·Basket One Two and Three Mr VANCE Yes I think we must go and review each Basket Mr LEAHY I think that is extremely important because withont in any way bn king out from the accordance of Basket Three I think we all realize that we must review each Basket Unfortunately he press attention and our own attention sometimes seems to put an midue emphasis on Basket 'l hree I do not think there any way you can look at the other two without realizing that the implemC11tation 9f those will have to affect favorably the implementation of Basket''l'hree Mr VANCE Y cs I think yott make a very importai1t point and I think if we look at the implementation to date w·e iind that th'e implementation on Basket 0110 is reasonably good bnt there are a n1 1mber of other ideas that I think are quite good that we could propose· to increase the confidence-building measures for example · Second I think that the ·implementation in Basket Two has not in 1i1any regards been satisfactory and I think it is very important to make sure that we do start to make progress in Basket Two because all of this spills together and works together to build the kind of framework 'in which you can improve the relationships betwee11 nations So I do not think we ought to neglect any of those· They are an integrated whole in a sense Mr LEAHY I am glad to hea r your point on Basket Two booause that sort of agrees with my own thinking You have looked a t it in for greater detail than I have Mr Secretary and I agree witl you on that conclusion I do know tha t you will continue to look at all of those but I just oannot help but feel that full implementation of the first two have got to help us very much jn the last one Thank you Mr Chairman · ·Mr ·PELL Mr Secretary I too join the chorus of apologies I not only missed the start of your statement but J in issed the v ote as well because I was coming in from out of town · · I congratulate you on your statemcrit when you said all three of the so-called Baskets are important and also your view that Belgrade should not be an a rena ·for polemics but as you suggested some frank and straightforward conversation but not one of sh er con rontat_ion I know my own view developed from the conversat10ns with various European leaders with whom I met was that what we have done here is achieve a sort of norm of behavior that we expect of people and while we recogrrize the Soviets have not met that norm we want to keep this norm in front of them and mention as well some of the g od things-some of the slight i rnprovements that have b en rn de hke the distribution of missals in the former Baltic Republic-one or two is 100 little things of that sort as well as all the h inous things that they have done In that regard in connection with the Shcharansky trial I was wondering if you saw that as a precursor to a series of showcase trials somewhat like ve had in Czechoslovakia in the early fifties or in Russia under Stalin or if you saw this as being somewhat individual and separate Mr VANCE I honestly do not know vVe will just have to wait and see Mr PELL I helped draft and initiated the letter about Shcharansky that was signed by about 30 of my colleagues and sent to General Secretary Brezhnev lDo you feel that letters like that are a help a hindrance or have no effect Mr VANCE I think that letter was a help Senator Dole asked me a similar question •as to what one should do at this point and I answered by saying that insofar as the Department is concerned that we have made our views known very clearly and strongly and for the moment we are going to wa tch and see what happens Mr PELL I think that course is probably correct I think we are more expendable as politicians in the public arena-whereas your ammunition can perhaps be better expended sometimes priv•ately ·In connection with the arguments tha t are going to be used there at Belgrade one of them 'will be the Soviet argument that we have not been very good about issuing visas to trade unionists-Mr Meany does not like them and also the question about the publication of the full te t of the Agreement But we cannot tell The New York Times to publish the full text nor do we want to use the taxpayers money to pay for a full page of advertisement How do we handle these arguments Mr VANCE ·with respect to the question of visas and in particular with respect to visas •as they relate to labor leaders I commented earlier to Congressman Bingham on this I indicated that our position is very clearly known with respect to the visa situation as it relates to labor leaders and there was no misunderstanding that it was not included under the Helsinki accords That is very clear I do not think there can be any question on that I did say however that our whole visa policy is under review in the executive branch a't this time Mr PELL On the question of publication of the agreement which is a technical point but it has done immense good behind the curtain where the Soviet and the Communist presses of the Eastern European countries have published 'the full text Many of my old friends--when I used to Jive there-have trled to stay in touch and they have used this text as a reason why they would try to get a passport to go to the vVest-ns a reason why they should have some liberalization Ambassador Sherer I am sure· has seen that effect when he was in Czechoslovakia ' I am wondering if we will· make any efforts to •fully publish the 'text of t hc Agreement ·· ·· · ·· · · · · 'Mr ' ViNcE My ·i ecoUectiori' is-I have got a note here in front of me__ _the Department of State Press· Release with 'the full text was 101 issued in August of rn75 and the full text was also carried in the State Department's Bulletin which was printed by the Government Printing Office Mr PELL 'Diat is absolutely correct but the free press did not carry it in our newspapers That is the point of argument that they toss back at us which we should be prepared for Mr VANCE I believe that summaries a nd excerpts were-Mr PELL That is correct but the full text was not published and on the other hand in the Communist press the full text was Mr V ANCJ I do not want to interfere with the press • Mr PELL I agree with you but it is an important point that wm come up Another question here that concerns me is how you felt we would handle at Belgrade the Communist argument that principle VI on intervention in internal affairs restricts our rights to raise questions about the implementation of principle VII on human rights 1 fr VANCE I think tho answer to that is really very clear Principle VII sa vs that this is a principle which is guiding to all the participants to the Helsinki Conference and signatories to the Helsinki accords I think having said that it makes it clear that it is legitimate for one participant to raise with another participant the fact 'that that country does not believe that the other country is in fact abiding by the principles which we have all solemnly signed Mr PELL I think this will be probably one of the areas where Ambassador Shorer wiU be spending a good deal of his time Mr VANCE I think so too Bud go ahead Mr S nEnEn ' Vell I agree l fr PELL Another Soviet ar nment vill be that the West attaches exclusive priority to human rights that we do not give the same attention to the rights of employment or social rights medical care and that argumentation How do we intend to handle that one i Mr VANCE Let me speak to that I tried to make clearer the Government's policy with respect to human rights in a speech which I gave 1 month ago And I indicated that among the rights which were included under the defini tion of human rights were economic and socia l rights as well So certainly we believe within the Government that they are included The political rights are but one clement and other rights are included as well Mr PELL Although if we hold to that firmly we have certain lack-· ing here My own State with 8 percent unemployment-we obviously wonld fall clown in that regard Mr VANCE That is thy I think all of us must recognize that we are not immune from criticism and it is fo be expected that where we mav be deficient we will be criticized · Mr PELL I agree with you Now on the general question o-f the emphasis on human rights do you feel that this is having an adverse effect on our fundamental relations with the Soviet Union in detente My own view is that it is not but there are two tracks here and one is human rights and the other is the -fundamental question of arms control and basic relations between the nations 1 fr -VANCE I slu re your views Senator Pell I think that there are two tracks on this and I think that the basic interest which the Soviet 102 Union ha s in the problem of a1 ins control ' particularly in the_ strategic area stands on itsowri twofeet And that thcrefore there 1s not the linkage that has sometimes been suggested Mr PELL Along that same line are you concerned that our emphasis on lnunari rights is going to cause any split with our estern allies I did notice that while 'they aJl would come np to yolt in private and say fine they did not want to particularly identify themselves as vigorously as ourselves publicly · Mr VANCE I think we are going to find different public responses by different com1tries I think you are quite right that all of them do say iri private conversations that they are very much with us on thissome of them say that for special reasons they do not feel at this point that they can be quite as outspoken as they would like to be·under the circumstances Let me say that in our preparation for Belgrade we have coordinated very closely with our allies and will continue to do so as we move toward the fall when the substantive discussions will get imderway · · · · · Mr PELL Do you think that if we ·raise the question of th J l CksonVanik amerrdment__ if that comes up again-will that have an ad verse effect · Mr VANcE I think we have first got to sort out among ourselves what· our position is going to be with' rcspect to Jackson-Yanik T 1e executive branch has not reached· its conclusions on this and as it considers it of colirse it will want to work very closely with Congress in discussion of the Congress's views ·on this mn tter · Mr PELL In doing that we should bear in mind that it was almost 70 years ago that we tied in the maltreatment of Jews in Russia with the withholding of trade privileges to them That is a fact that is not generally brought out-it did not just originate with Jackson Vanik I saw in the press that the head of our delegation will be Under Secretary Christopher Vould you be at liberty to say who else will be jn •the delegation I think earlier you responded that members of the Commission would be welcome there as delegates Mr VANCE Indeed I did say tha t and all members of the Cominission are welcome there · Mr PELL vViH there be a ny outside delegates brought in along the lines of Senator Case's suggestion Mr VANCE There will be nine State Department people on the delegation I think I should leave it to the President to indicate who the individuals are when he considers it to be the appropriate time Mr PELL Thank you very much Do any o f my colleagues have any more questions Senator Dole Senator from Kansas Mr Dor£ To the question of members of the Commission-will the membeFS of the Commission be members o f the delegation or are we jnst welcome there · Mr VANCE No yoi1 will be members of the de legation Mr Dorn That will be in the meeting in October right Mr V ANOE Yes sir Mr DoLE Now what a bout-·-·Mr CASE Excrise me That has a certain connotation of discipline Mr VANCE Of discipline v- 0 103 Mr CASI Of discipline in coordi ation of policy ancl what not that perhaps we onght to clarify before we get there - Mr VANCE This is a subject which we have been discussing with yo11r chairmari at some length It is our strong view that our delegation would be strengthened by the participation of the m embcrs of this Commission and ve hope that you will see fit to do so l fr PELL My own view would he that we should adhere to whatever is the chairman of the ·delegation's position at the- time but if we disagree we·can•disagree in another arena b11t not at Belgrade Mr CASE The chairman of the Commission or the chairman of the delegation Mr PELL Chairman of the delegation Secrdary Christopher · Mr CASE Yon mean in other words the administration's position shonld be the main one Mr PEL'L Yes Mr CASE I am not arguing with you about that because the question arises at the U N and at other groups and so on Mr VANCE Yes it does Mr CASE I am not saying now whether it will be one way or the other bnt we ought to know now where we stand Mr VANCE yes Mr PELL Senator Dole Mr DoLE Just to pursue the same-now the Ambassador will be going over when-Friday l fr SHEREU Saturday sir Mr J oLE Saturday and then you will be working on the agenda for about how long Mr SHERER The preparatory meeting is strictly technical in nature Senator and we think we can finish that work in 6 weeks Mr DoLE And that will sort of lay the foundation and the groundwork for what happens in October Mr SirnRER Yes sir V-e have four tasks-one is to establish the date of the main meeting second is to establish the duration of the main meeting the third is to discuss the agenda of the main meeting and f0tnth is to discuss the modalities of the main meeting Mr PELL Vhat does the modalities mean Mr CASE That was the word I meant to ask you about this morning Mr SHERER I had to look it up and I believe it means procedures Mr CASJ J You are the one that used it Laughter Mr Dorn Then I assume that in this prepamtory meeting there will be a determination made about what will be discussed at the main meeting and it is yom-as I understand it the administration'spoint of view that every thing should be discussed and laid on the table-all three Baskets in other words not just Basket III Mr VANCE All three Baskets should be there and perhaps there might be even a fourth one to deal with the Mediterranean situation which-is part of the accord I think this is to be worked out by Ambassador Sherer and his colleagues there but it will certainly include all three Baskets Vhether it includes a fourth or a fifth Basket I think is still up for discussion · Mr DoLR Vill there be a determination made at the first meeting whether or not we will be-I should not say permitted but whether it 104 would be wise to go into individual cases-will that be a determination made by each member of the delegation at the main meeting 1 Mr VANCE Go ahead Bud Mr SHERER Senator I think that the procedures that wiH be adopted for the main meeting will be similar to the procedures that were in effect at the second stage in Geneva of the Helsinki meetings And that is that we breakdown into committees and we do· go into individual cases and we do use strong language in these committeesstraightforward talk that Senator Case had asked about earlier Mr DoLE You had a pretty good laundry list of the things they will be saying about us so we will be prepared Mr SHERER Yes sir we do have a fairly complete list I think Mr DoLE Theirs is longer than ours i fr SHERER I do not believe so sir Mr DoLE Certainly we have a longer list than they have Mr SHERER Yes that is right Mr DoLE Thank you Mr Chairman Mr PELL Yes Mr DoLE We had one session privately with the members of this Commission and it was brought out that sometimes Members of Congress become loose cannons They may be turned loose on the horizon but of course we do not want to embarrass the administration so I suppose there will be a lot of close contact with Members Mr VANCE Yes there certainly will be and we have to work out tiie procecl11res and work them out in detail so that everybody knows and understands what the procedures are vVe have got time to _do that and we have started the discussions with the chairman already I really _believe that this can be worked out satisfactorily with everybody Mr PELL I do agree with the importance of some discipline I thank you very much Mr Secretary I would also add that since you have answered the questions so fully and frankly there is no need for an executive session immediately following this The House Members are still-my fellow Commissioners are still on the floor voting and I do not think my other colleagues have any further questions Mr CASE I would just like to ask Mr Chairman that we be permitted to submit questions to the Secretary because among other things the President's ·Report just got to us this morning 'vVe have not had a chance to read it carefully and we would like to do that Mr VANCE Surely Mr CASE I appreciate the Secretary's willingness to answer these questions Mr PELL I think that is a very good idea but I was hoping you might limit it to 5 days or a week Mr CASE I should think a week would be a reasonable amount of time Mr VANCE Good Thank you very much Mr PELL Th nk you very much Mr Secretary and gentlemen Ve now stand adJourned · Whereupon at 3 20 p m the hearing vas adjourned