BASKET THREE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE HELSINKI ACCORDS HEARING BEFORE THE COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE NINETY-SIXTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION ON IMPLEMENTATION OF THE HELSINKI ACCORDS Volume X ALEKSANDR GINZBURG ON THE HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION IN THE U S S R MAY 11 1979 Printed for the use of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe U S GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 47-769 WASHINGTON 1979 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents U S Government Printing Office Washini ton D C 20402 COl 11 lISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE DANTE B FASCELL Florida Chairman CLAIBORNE PELL Rhode Island Cerchairman SIDNEY R YATES Illinois JONATHAN B BINGHAM New York PAUL SIMON Illinois JOHN BUCHANAN Alabama MILLICENT FENWICK New Jersey GEORGE McGOVERN South Dakota PATRICKJ LEAHY Vermont RICHARD STONE Florida JACOB K JAVITS New York ROBERT DOLE Kansas EXECUTIVE BRANCH PATRICIA DERIAN Department of State DAVID McGIFFERT Department of Defense FRANK WEIL Department of Commerce R SPENCER OLIVER Staff Director and General Counut 8AM WISE Deputy Staff Director CANDICE AGN0NE Preas Officer CATHY COSMAN Staff Assistant II meo i- n e a u -mllliJjr QQl lo BffllimiR • wi Ila na II w 'IJ111 t CONTENTS IMPLEMENTATION OF THE HELSINKI ACCORDS ALEKSANDR GINZBURG ON THE HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION IN THE U S S R WITNESSES Friday May 11 1979 Bernstein Robert chairman of Helsinki Watch New York-based Helsinki Monitoring Group for the United States and president of Random House Publishers____________________________________ Alekseeva Lyudmila founding member of Moscow Helsinki Monitoring Group and official representative of the Helsinki Monitors Abroad_____________________________________________________ Ginzbnrg Aleksandr founding m •mber of Moscow Helsinki Monitoring Group administrator of Solzhenitsyn Fund for the Aid of Political Prisoners and their Families arrested in Moscow February 1977 Sentenced to 8-year prisi n term July 1978 Released to the United1979____ States __in__ __ United dissident-spy exchange April __ __ __ States-Soviet __ ____________________ ____________ III hn 4 7 8 IM PLEM-ENTATION OF THE HELSINKI ACCORDS ALE KSANO R GINZB'URG 0N THE HUMAN RFGHTS SITUATI'ON IN TllE U S S R FRI DAY MAY 11 1'979 COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE Washington D O The Commission met pursuant to·notice at 9 30 a m in room 2318 Rayburn House Office Building Hon Dante B Fascell chairman presiding In attendance Commissioners Bingham Buchanan Dole Fenwick Leahy and Stone Also in attendance R Spencer Oliver staff director and' general counsel OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN FASCELL Chairman FASCELL The Commission will come to order It is with mixed emotions that open today's· hearings On the one hand we are honored to have this opportunity to meet and speak firsthand with a remarkable man a man who has· been prominently involved in the sti u ggle for human rights iJ ·the Soviet Union r over _a decade the adnnmstrator of the Solzhemtsyn Fund for political prisoners a founding'member of the first Helsinki Monitoring Group a man who has made great sacrifices and endured much suffering for his efforts to help his fellow man We· rej'oice that Aleksandr Ginzburg has finally been released from the inhumanity of the Soviet labor camps We are delighted that he will shortly be reunited with his wife mother and young sons We wish for Mr Ginzburg and his family a life of happiness and fulfillment We hope that he will be able to pursue his vital and noble work as a champion for the cause of liberty and human dignity In that endeavor we look forward to establishing as close a working relationship with Mr Ginzburg as the Commission already enjoys with Mrs Lyudmila Alekseeva the Moscow Helsinki Group's official representative abroad who is also here today It is clear that in this case the Soviet Bnion's loss is our gain I cannot help but feel a sense of sadness however Tomorrow marks the third anniversary of the founding of the Moscow Helsinki Monitoring Group Three years ago· a small band of dedicated and courageous individuals in the U S S R took upon themselves the difficult task of monitoring their countr y's' compliance with the Helsinki Fina Act For this selfless and im __£or an activ ty-w hich tp e Fin l Act itself affirms-many of the Helsmki momtors mcludmg Abk r ' 1 2 'Ginzburg have paid a terrible price Seventeen members of the Helsinki Monitormg Group are today languishing in Soviet prisons labor camps or remote Siberian exile Although we are gratified that Mr Ginzburg is here with us today we profoundly regret that the Soviet Government still holds his colleagues in deplorable conditions of imprisonment While gestures such as the recent releases are welcome they cannot obscure the basic and tragic fact that nearly 4 years after the signing of the Helsinki accords the U S S R continues to trample upon the rights of its people · · · · The U S concern for human rights a11d fundamental freedoms isand will remain-an integral aspect of our relations with all countries A conviction held by many in the Congress and the American public is that the way in which a government honors its commitments to its own citizens is a measure of how that ·government will live up to its treaty obligations to other nations As the Moscow Helsinki Group proclaimed in their very first document Issues of humanitarianism and free information have a direct relationship to the problem of interna ional security While I commend the Administration for their steadfast efforts that resulted in Mr Ginzburg's presence here today let us not forget those 17 incarcerated Helsinki monitors nor the thousands of men and women trapped within the Soviet Gulag for merely trying to exercise their political and religious rights · Mr Ginzburg I know that my colleagues on the Commission join me in extending to you the heartiest and warmest of welcomes to this country Now I would like to ask the Commissioners who are here if they have some additional remarks Senator Dole Commissioner DOLE I would like to yield first to Senator Leahy Chairman F ASCELL Senator Leahy · Commissioner LEAHY I would like to say Russian phrase I guess you should translate that into Russian· I'm afraid I butchered it badly enough What I was saying was welcome to Vermont to Mr Ginzburg We have a very distinguished colleague of his Mr Solzhenitsyn already in Vermont I'm glad that Mr Ginzburg can be there also I had the great honor over the weekend to spend time at the home of Dr Olin Robison-the president of Middlebury College-who is here with us today Cathy Cosman Spencer Oliver and I met with Pastor Vins in the evening and then again on Monday morning and discussed with him what he and Mr Ginzburg and others have gone through · Obviously I am very proud as a Vermonter that they are in our State and can feel the kind of freedom that we offer not only in Vermont but of course in any of the 50 States of the Union I am proud and pleased that they can feel comfortable with us At the same time I naturally share the sorrow of my fellow Commissioners that it is even necessary to have a haven for these people in our country or any other country knowing that they have been sent out of their own country solely because they have stood up for the rights that have really been guaranteed to them when the Soviet Union signed the Helsinki accords ·This is because of course the Soviet Union has not lived up to those rights and has not lived up to what its signature meant and because Mr Ginzburg very rightly demanded those rights he is now in exile from his own country I do hope that he and the others feel comfortable in our country will ----- -------------------- 3 I am just saddened as any person would be to think that a country would deny those rights that we take for granted here and that anyone would have to leave their own country under those circumstances Thank you Mr Chairman Chairman F ASCELL Senator Dole Commissioner DOLE Thank you Mr Chairman I welcome Mr Ginzburg and others in this audience who share our concerns Relatives of some of the activists who are still imprisoned are present here today Mr Mrs Gajauskas members of the family of Balys Gajauskas whose case among many others deserves our attention are here as will · Congressman Dornan on the House side has been working very hard in this area as have others in both the House and Senate We have had a number of meetings and I think most of us have been impressed with the progress made in the past few years following the sigmng of the Helsinki accords in 197 5 During meetings at Belgrade my colleagues and I made efforts to persuade the Soviets of the need for all participant nations to respect the provisions to which they had agreed to be signatory It is my belief that the inherent need for freedom of thought speech and worship has been a powerful driving force throughout the history of mankind Men such as Aleksandr Ginzburg and many others whose very existences have been sacrificed and dedicated to the fight for a freedom that some may never live to see realized are a strong and powerful symbol of that drive Their courage and their resilience are testimony to the struggle that has been going on for as long as tyranny has existed and will persist as long as governments and regimes choose to ignore that there will always be men along with Patrick Henry who will question whether life is so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery This question has long been answered by those the Soviet Government calls dissidents It seems to me that we have a special obligation to men like Aleksandr Ginzburg if we really believe in freedom and if we really believe in the concept of hum11 n rights-as we do I also praise the President for his continuing efforts So I Just say welcome to Mr Ginzburg We look forward to many other meetings such as this where others who should be free are here to visit with us Thank you Mr Chairman Chairman FAsCELL Now this next young lady-I'm going to take a moment or two because she not only puts her heart in everything she does but is also a very brilliant mind We owe her a special debtthose of us on the Commission-because the Commission is her brainchild and her sponsorship and her efforts spurred it through the Congress and gave us the opportunity to come together in this very worthwhile work that we are en aged in So I am delighted to turn the floor now over to Mrs Fenwick Commissioner FENWICK Thank you Mr Chairman for your usual generosity I know there are others you want to hear-and so do I But how can we not welcome so warmly Aleksandr Ginzburg for whom we have written so many times asking for his release Now he is with us but we must remember also Orlov Shcharansky Tykhy Rudenko Zlotver M er men known and unknown famous and not so famous all le£ t behmd in the prisons of that country from which Mr Ginzburg has been exiled 4 I rem« 1mber in Paris M'r M'aximov the edit9r of Kontinent said that some 9ftlie exiles wept wn n thex'read 'tl ie Helsinki accord_s Now he said I re·alize that· we· have Bomb on our liands Wliat· is that bomb It is_ the right of the people o f thos prison countr es to protest when the rights that were agreed to and signed by the1r nat10n are not be g g v·en to the he omb is the pp wer of the human spirit and the msistence that those rights be recog1 11zed T ere·is no wa y-fq 1 ·in this country to nieas re the cour ge of the people-the Helsinln W a ch groups-m tliose prison countries There 1s no way to measure tlieir courage What they face is menace I ren iember going to see Mr Turchin in liis little flat in Nt oscow Six times he had been called in by the KGB and was told tliat Next time you may not come back home He's here now too So we think of this parade of people who have come out who have· left their country-which they must love as we do ours-forever exiled and all those still left' behind The question is Are we going to be with them in spirit Are we going to exhibit' the solidarity that human beings must develop if this world is g9ing to· move to some kind of respect for liuman beings Mr Ginzburg is the mark of all that courage and the symbol' of it here We look at him and we know that it is· not easy to be in one of those p i -isons-for any length of time l think it is a mask f_ su_fferilig that we see and we must honor the couri i g that made him_ endure· 1t Thank you Mr Chairman Chaihnan FASCELL Thank you Mrs Fenwick Ladies and gentlemen our first witness today is an outstanding American Inspired by the heroic efforts -of Mr Ginzburg and his colleagues in the Soviet Union a new organization was-formed in the United States called the Helsinki' Watch The chairman of the board is here today That group is a private New York-based group monitoring compliance with th e Helsinki accords Mr Bernstein is also the chairman president and chief executive officer of Random House a past chairman of the Association of American Phl lishers the founder of the AAP's Committee· on International Freedom To Publish a director of the lnternational·League for Human Riglits a mem ber of the Board of Writers arid' Scliolars International- chairman of the Fund for Free Expression and a member of the National Advisory Committee of Amnesty International I have undoubtedly just touched on a few That is the reason I say very sincerely that he is an outstanding American We are deliglited to welcome hin i here today Mr Robert Bernstein chairman of th ooard of the Helsinki Watch a 1 STATEMENT' OF' ROBERT BERNSTEIN Mr 3ERNSTEIN That lo_ng list of course all says the same thing-Cliairman FASCELL Yes You are stuck with a lot of liard work Mr B_ERNSTEIN Iwaµt' to thank you for allowing me a-few minutes today to-speak on behalf of the American Helsinki Watch ©ommittee I am particufarly honored to be speaking on the same morning as Aleksandr Ginzburg who has accomplished so•much for the cause of human rights Tlie Helsinki W at'ch shares with everyone in this· room enormous relief and satisfaction that he is no longer confined' in a- labor camp ·However we cannot allow our elation over his release to dim our memory of why he was imprisoned Mr Ginzburg eloquently espoused the principles embodied in the Helsinki Final Act and for exercising his right to free speech a right guaranteed by the Final Act he was jailed In forcing Mr Ginzburg to live in foreign exile the Soviet Union -continues to deny him that right I remember Boris Stukalyn chairman of the State Committee of ·the U S S R Council of Ministers on Publishing Printing and Book Selling J roudly telling the Association of American Publishers that the Helsmki Fmal Act had been printed in its entirety in Pravda so that every Soviet citizen was aware of its content He pointed out that no American newspaper had clone the same I did not realize at ·that moment how cruel a gesture it was for Pravda to print the act Principle VII includes this crucial sentence They the government signing the act confirm the right of the individual to know and act upon his rights What a capricious injustice it is to inform people of their rights and then to harass and imprison them when they try to act upon them There can be no question that the systematic trial and imprisonment of Soviet citizens who participate in Helsinki Watch committees amounts to a clear warning to all Soviet citizens that it is dangerous to take Helsinki guarantees seriously The more than 50 prominent Americans who are members of the American Helsinki Watch Committee are drawn from a wide variety -of fields They meet their Soviet counterparts at many international meetings Sharing more than a common interest and expertise in the professional subject at hand they naturally wish to speak about the ·many concerns which are common to us all regardless of national or -cultural origin yet they are inhibited by the knowledge that an honest -exchange might endanger their Soviet colleagues while one in which their counterparts parrot the official line is of no value at all This is -especially true if they wish to discuss the Helsinki Final Act and its meaning in the U S S R One of the aims of our committee is to see that discussion of Helsinki practices becomes a common part of the agenda of international meet·mgs one in which citizens of different countries participate We believe the Soviet Government will eventually understand that it cannot continue to muzzle its citizens if their country is to derive maximum benefit from the information exchanges which these meet·ings provide We believe they must change their policy not because it is gopd for the United States or good for the West but because it will be good for the Soviet Union The release of the Helsinki monitors and other political prisoners who are now languishing in Soviet prison camps not in exchange for spies but because they deserve their freedom and not to be banished to the West but to speak freely in their homeland might do as much ·to forward world peace as even an arms limitation agreement In closing let me extend a warm welcome to Aleksandr Ginzburg who I hope one day will be able to return to his own country to con-tinue his important work I hope too that I will soon have the privilege of meeting with Yuri Orlov chairman of the Moscow Helsinki Watch 47-760-79-2 6 and Mykola Rudenko chairman of the Ukrainian Watch Group preferably as free men on Russian soil but at the very least as free men in the West Thank you QUESTIONS AND REMARKS Chairman F ASCELL Thank you very much Wait a minute Don't run off so fast Mr BERNSTEIN OK OK Chairman F ASCELL I'm sure that the Commission would like to know a little bit more about your work with the Helsinki Watch So if you don't mind perhaps we can have a few questions I'll start here on my left with Mrs Fenwick and Senator Dole Commissioner FENWICK I have no real questions I think the work you do is so unquestionably valuable We all must be concerned that the human rights in Basket III be honored in every country that signed-and that certainly includes our own I am very happy to see you here There is so much work to do Everybody who cares must work together I hope that your group Mr Bernstein will indeed let us know of any violations of those rights that come to your attention so that we-this Commissioncan work with you here Mr BERNSTEIN Thank you Commissioner DOLE I have no questions Thank you Mr Bernstein I commend your organization I believe it is important as you indicate is one of your aims to discuss these issues at international meetings It seems to me that-we meet periodically and we travel and we try to keep abreast of what we believe are very important matters but sometimes I wonder if there is a broad enough understanding across this country I am certain that your efforts are very helpful in that area Thank you Chairman F ASCELL Senator Leahy Commissioner LEAHY I think probably the only thing that I would add in following along with what Senator Dole just said is that what you do is extremely important I think it would be helpful to this Commission if you would on an ongoing basis keep us aware of the specific examples that you are investigating or monitoring I make an open invitation to you to add material to us and to call to our attention those incidents that we may not otherwise be aware of So you have a carte blanche invitation from us to do that Mr BERNSTEIN Thank you Chairman FASCELL Senator let me just add at that moment that we certainly welcome the work of the Helsinki Watch and Mr Bernstein We look on them as our nongovernmental counterpart We expect a very close relationship Goodness knows there is enough work for everybody in the field of human rights We welcome all the talent and ability and interest that we can get So we are very anxious to work with you in every way possible and look forward to that opportunity Mrs Fenwick Commissioner FENWICK I have one more question I wonder if you could make a special effort to get after some of these organized groups such as the Pen Club the Jurists the Psychiatric Association-Chairman FAS CELL He is already after them · 7 Commissioner FENWICK Are you after them Laughter We had a big success at the Hawaii meeting The English psychiatrists and the Americans were able to include on the agenda the question of the _misuse of psychiatric hospitals as prisons If you could begin to organize-which is easier and better for a citizen group than it is for a Helsinki Commission composed of Members of Congressto urge these associations to concern themselves it would be most useful In a curious way it is a powerful influence when the scientists and those independent associations with whom the Soviet Government officials like to have their professionals meet bring to the attention of the meeting the plight of members of that particuhr profession I wondered if you were involved in any conscious effort of that kind Mr BERNSTEIN That is exactly what we are doing I think the American Psychiatric Association meets next week in Chicago and on May 25 the World Psychiatric Association meets in a closed meeting in Moscow We are talking next week with members who are going ·there-Commissioner FENWICK Very good Mr BERNSTEIN continuing And asking them a Why is the meeting closed and b to inquire as to the fate of Aleksandr Podrabinek who wrote Punitive Medicine and is now in Siberia for having written a book that has been published here and which tries to call attention to the use of psychiatry in politics That is exactly what we are doing Commissioner FENWICK Good Mr BERNSTEIN We are working with citizen-not Government sponsored international meetings-with citizen meetino-s-psychiatrists political scientists physicists-all of the groups Scientists of course are way ahead of us They have been doing a fantastic job all of their own Commissioner FENWICK That is very good because we have been told over and over at these hearings of the value of those groupsthose independent worldwide groups They are tremendously powerful Thank you Mr Chairman Chairman F ASCELL Thank you very much Mr Bernstein Our next witness this morning is the official representative abroad of the Moscow Helsinki Monitoring Group She is a founding member of the Moscow group She emigrated from the U S S R in 1977 and presently lives in West Virginia with her husband She has been of -enormous assistance to this Commission since she has been in the United States-always extremely helpful She is here today to intro-duce her friend and colleague Aleksandr Ginzburg We are very happy to welcome and to introduce Mrs Lyudmila Alekseeva Welcome Mrs Alekseeva STATEMENT OF LYUDMILA ALEKSEEVA Mrs ALEKSEEVA Excuse me my English pronunciation Chairman F ASCELL That is all right Do you want to pull the ·mike a little closer to you Mrs Alekseeva Commissioner LEAHY I might say that your English pronuncia·tion is a lot better than my Russian pronunciation Laughter Mrs ALEKSEEVA The third anniversary of the Moscow Helsinki ·Group is marked by an extraordinary event five political prisoners 8 have been released before the end of their sentences and five more were exchanged for Soviet spies Among those who were exchanged is Aleksandr Ginzburg one of the founders of the Moscow Group and the representative of the Solzhenitsyn Fund for the Aid of Politi£al Prisoners The members of the Moscow Helsinki Group are happy for all the released prisoners happy for Alik's family and happy for Alik himself He is a very ill person and for him to have been in prison for such a long time would have meant his death We wish to thank members of the Helsinki Commission the American Helsinki Group and all the supporters of political prisoners in the U S S R We thank President Carter and his Administration It is the first time since the Soviets gained control of our country that 10 people were released from Gulag all at the same time This event proved the effectiveness of Western public support of dissidents and of Carter's human rights policy But our joy is tempered by thoughts of the others still in Gulag We are thinking of the convicted members of the Moscow Helsinki Group-about Dr Orlov Anatoly Shcharansky Aleksandr Podrabinek and Vladimir Slepak-and about the members of the republic Helsinki groups-Rudenko Tykhy Marynovych Matusevych Lukyanenko Romanyuk Petkus Gajauskas Nazaryan Aruntunyan Kostava Rtskhiladze and Gamsakhurdia We are thinking of all political prisoners including those who are not well known in the West only because they did not happen to meet Western reporters in Moscow We hope that American public opinion as well as the American Government will not lessen its efforts in their support until the day there is a complete amnesty for all political prisoners Thank you Chairman FASCELL Thank you very much Mr Ginzburg has a prepared statement and he is going to deliver that in his own language Ms Cathy Cosman of the Commission staff who speaks fluent Russian will read simultaneously the English version for both the audience ourselves up here and for the media We hope that will be adequate In the meantime Mr Ginzburg is assisted by another friend who has been here many times to assist us Lydia Voronina Mr Ginzburg we would be happy to hear from you STATEMENT OF ALEKSANDR GINZBURG Mr GrnzBURG through an interpreter I must begin with a sad announcement On April 5 Father Karolis Garuckas a Catholic priest and member of the L ithuanian Helsinki Group died of cancer His signature appears on all the Lithuanian Group documents In the summer of 1977 at the trial of Lithuanian Group member Viktoras Petkus Father Karolis who was already terminally ill made the following statement We worked together so you should put me in the dock as well I would consider it an honor to die in the camps as have so many other servants of the church in Lithuania · Hundre9s of Lithuanians went to bury Father Karolis priest and human rights defender We share their grief at his death I ask you to join me in honoring his memory with a moment of silence Moment of silence 9 Mr GrnzBURG though an interpreter Thank you These last 3 years have been so filled with events that I having spent the lust 2 years in isolation find it difficult to grasp all that has happened in this time Camp walls have limited that information that has reached me I am unaware of much that is known to those present here toclu y In cnmp I did not feel cut off from my comrades in the Groups We broke through the web of misinformation to get at the truth about our country about the Group and about our friends But only now have I been able to discover what the Group has done during my imprisonment I was amazed that they had managed to accomplish so much However I possess information unknown to those on the outsideinformation about Helsinki Groups operating in camps for politicn prisoners At the present time three members of the Helsinki Groups are in exile Two Shcharansky and Petkus are in prison and 11 others are in the cumps All those members of the Helsinki Groups who have ended up in camp have announced their intention to retain their Group membership They will also continue even under these new circumstances to inform the public of violations of the humanitarian provisions of the Final Act Ukrainian Group members Levko Lukyanenko and Oleksiy Tykhy were confined to the Mordovian special regimen camp with me In our camp four others joined us in the Helsinki Group Balys Gajauskas petitioned the Lithuanian Group to accept him as a member Our Group in camp made a similar request to the Ukrainian Group on behrrlf of Father Vasily Romanyuk a political prisoner In addition to Gajauskn s and Romanyuk political prisoners Eduard Kuznetsov and Bogdan Rebrik joined us And so we had a total of seven members I understand that there is also a Helsinki Group in the Perm camps but all I know about that is that Yuri Orlov leader of the Moscow Group is a member Our Mordovian camp Group prepared three documents I hope to make these available to the Commission as soon as they arrive in the West The first of these documents concerns capital punishment In it we appealed to all the signatories of the Helsinki accords to abolish the death penalty The fact of the matter is that several people who had been sentenced to death turned up in our camp Each spent a year Olli death row before having his sentence commuted to 15 years special re l'imen camp It was from them that we learned the names of 20 individuals who had-unbeknownst to the public-been executed These 20 went to their death from special investigatory prisons in three small oblasts-Bryansky Kaluzhsky and Zhitomirsky-between 1976 and 1978 Five to six people from each of these special investi atory prisons are executed annually Every oblast of the Soviet Umon has at least one of these prisons Larger oblasts with populations of a million or more have more than one The number of those condemned to death is roughly proportional to the population of the oblast We called our second document Combining Political Detente with Military Detente In this document we appealed to those Helsinki signatories which still require obligatory military service to abolish it Of course as always the fate of our country concerned us the most I am certain that the securitv of our native land would not be ·endangered by abolishing conscription but I am not certain that the 10 security of any of us can be assured should the U S S R retain such conscription Our third document concerns religious persecution in camps forpolitical prisoners In our camp as well as in others in the Mordovian complex confiscation of crosses from Christians and yarmulkas and Jewish stars from Jews has become a common occurrence In addition religious literature-in fact anything of a religious nature including letters in which relatives have copied prayers for us-is taken away What other new information do I possess I am perhaps the first who can tell you about how the KGB checked' the accuracy of the Moscow Helsinki Group documents which were· used as evidence against Orlov Shcharansky and myself A similarcheck for accuracy was conducted in 197 5 in the case against Sergei Kovalev At that time the KGB examined the reports of The Chronicle of Current Events the human rights bulletm which has been published regularly for 11 years now These investigations biased as they were revealed that the human rights documents contained no distortions and only a very few minor· inaccuracies-unavoidable under the circumstances My sentence gave me the opportunity personally to check the accuracy of the Moscow Helsinki Group documents on prison conditions for political detainees In camp I saw with my own eyes that the situation of political prisoners is even worse than that described in the supposedly anti-Soviet and slanderous documents which incriminated Orlov Shcharansky and myself During the brief time that the KGB investigation lasted prison conditions improved somewhat Even then however they did not even approach what could be considered minimally humane standards Although the investigation showed that the information we sent to the West was accurate our situation did not improve For over a year the investigation was conducted on the basis of the capital charge of treason My interrogators constantly reminded me that I faced the death penalty I realized that this wasn't merely an empty threat when I heard one of my interrogators say Don't think we'll forgive· you the billions the Soviet Union lost because you caused the trade· agreement with the United States to fall through He was speaking of course of the Jackson-Yanik amendment Although the Moscow Helsinki Group was formed after Jackson-Yanik was adopted the So-viet authorities clearly wanted to vent their spleen by shooting someone in retaliation I know that they also threatened Orlov and Shcharansky with the· death penalty Incidentally they charged Orlov with organizing theMoscow Helsinki Group at the behest of the U S Congress They alsocharged that Orlov managed the Group on the orders of Congress and at the personal direction of Congressman Fascell Laughter Mr GrnzBURG throu h an interpreter On the third anniversary of the Moscow Helsinki uroup I'm glad to announce that despite all the arrests the Group is actively continuing its work that new members have joined and that our arrests have not deterred them In addition to the situation of political prisoners the documents of the Moscow Helsinki Group contain information about persecution of religious believers on violations of the rights of Crimean Tatars and other nationalities and on the problems of emigration and information exchange Even after our arrests the range of problems- 11 investigated by the group widened The group published documents on the situation of pensioners and the handicapped in the U S S R on the depravity of Soviet labor legislation on the right to habeas corpus and on other problems Thus in spite of the persecution the Moscow Helsinki Group did not turn into a mere self-defense society Of course the fate of arrested Group members did find a place in its documents Drawing on my previous camp experience I dealt with the problems of political prisoners even while I was in Moscow Therefore it is natural for me to take this opportunity to raise the issue of political prisoners my colleagues Orlov Shcharansky and Slepak as well as other political prisoners particularly those sentenced to long terms and those who are ill Recently 10 people were sprung from the Gulag As the price of their release however these people were forced to give up their native country Most of them were psychologically prepared for this step For me on the other hand it was a wrenching experience But there are no two ways about it One must work for the- release of those who remain imprisoned-even it means paying the same price Yuri· Orlov leader of the Moscow Helsinki Group is a case in point An outstanding physicist Orlov is well known in the West Since the days of Stalin no scientist of his stature has been imprisoned in Soviet camps He has been invited to work at both American and Euror ean scientific center Ten years_ of anual la or du_ring_ whi ch · he will have no opportumty to practice his profession will kill him as a scientist To him this prospect is surely more bitter than actual physical death Sergei Kovalev a noted biologist is one of the founders of the Soviet human rights movement Kovalev is one of the finest people I have ever met He was arrested in 1974 His sentence ends in 1986 Two years ago when he was in dire need of an emergency operation he managed to get sent to the prison hospital only after he and other political prisoners conducted a month long hunger strike For Kovalev release is a matter of life or death All of us who have been released and our friends in the U S S R consider it a great injustice that three people convicted in the Leningrad hijacking trials still remain in camp We are particularly disturbed when we think that these are the three with the longest time left to serve Yuri Federov Aleksey Murzhenko and Iosif Mendelevich In 1970 Yuri Federov was sentenced along with Kuznetsov and Dymshitz to a 15-year term He suffers from severely inflamed kidneys and other illnesses brought on by life in the camp His medical card states that he is supposed to be under the care of a urologist The card was issued in 1977 but he has yet to see a urologist Even hunger strikes do not get him the medical attention he so badly needs And in his condition such hunger strikes can mean certain death after the third day Oleksiy Tykhy 52 years old is a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group Although he is a philosopher Tykhy has had to work as a fireman since his first sentence Arrested in 1977 Tykhy's term will not end until 1992 When I last saw him in camp he was in extremely bad health I am not sure that he is still alive Unending illegal harassments and punishment-which the Moscow Helsinki Group in its documents convincingly calls torture by hunger cold and the 12 deprivat1on of sleep-have forced Tykhy to go on a hunger strike While he was fasting the prison administration put him in a punishment cell They did not call an orderly to look after him and there is no doctor in camp On the 16th day of his hunger strike Tykhy got a stomach ulcer for the first time in his life Medical personnel in the camps do not lift a finger until a person is actually screaming from pain Tykhy was taken to the camp hospital-which is at least 20 kilometers away_ and there they performed an operation on him but they performed it so badly that he needed a second one It was in this way-after a second operation in the same hospital-that my friend Yuri Galanskov died in 1972 Vladimir Osipov is the editor of the samizdat journal Veche It took him 3 years to get the medical personnel in camp to admit that he had tuberculosis-something which even an untrained eye could spot right away Now Osipov is in the hospital in serious condition Mykola Rudenko who is the leader of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group and a well-known writer is also a war invalid In camp he has frequently been in the hospital but has never received complete medical treatment The last time he was in the hospital Rudenko was told that he would be sent back to camp only a few days after a serious operation The reason for this early transfer back to camp was that they did not want him to meet Oleksiy Tykhy in that same hospital The incidents I have told you about are not exceptions Rather they are ordinary events and typical of prison life They are extracted from a whole mass of such incidents Stomach ulcers tuberculosis hypertension kidney and liver ailments are inevitable diseases for prisoners I do not know any prisoner who does not suffer from at least one of these illnesses This is the natural result of our diet our medicine and our punitive legislation I want to stress that the mistreatment we find in camp is not the result of perverted actions on the part of individual guards In fact everything is done according to regulations and spec1al instructions And that is the most terrible thing of all · I want to mention a few other people who are in the same situation and state of health as the people I have already described Sergei Babich is serving a 15-year sentence This is his fourth term Igor Ogurtsov is serving a 20-year sentence Petras Paulaitis is facing a 25-year sentence Vladimir Dvoryansky was sentenced for refusing to give false testimony and he is very il1 Vladimir Shelkov is an 84-year-old religious leader Danilo Shumuk has spent 30 years in the camps His present term ends in 1987 Oksana Popovich-this is her second sentence She is very ill and is currently serving a 13-year sentence Yuri Shukhevich has hardly left prison since he was 14 years old Levko Lukyanenko is a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group whose present term ends in 1991 Viktoras Petkus is a member of the Lithuanian Helsinki Group who has already been imprisoned for 18 years and who is now facing another 13-year term Balys Gajauskas is a member of the Lithuanian Helsinki Group who has spent 2 years in German concentration camps 27 years in 13 Soviet camps and who now faces another 13-year term of imprisonment Should one struggle to get them released Definitely I must thank the members of the congressional Helsinki Commission for their concern for our fates and particularly their attention to the Solzhenitsyn Russian Social Fund which is the main task in my life Your existence and your activity are a great boon to us I hope you will not consider my release a signal to end your efforts I am ready to answer your questions The issues about which I am most knowledgeable are the problems of and aid for political prisoners and the situat10n of religious minorities QUESTIONS AND REMARKS Chairman FASCELL Mr Ginzburg thank you very much I also thank you Ms Cosman for a good job I must say Mr Ginzburg as you testified and I listened to you I got some small idea of the strength that you have and the fire that 1s within you The vitality and the courage that kept you alive through your ordeal gave you the strength to continue to fight for your convictions and your beliefs It is very clear that you are a strong man mentally I do not know a thing about your physical condition It is obvious that you did not get too good a treatment wherever you were I must say that we will welcome in the Commission the receipt of the three documents of the Mordovian Group as soon as they are finished or delivered We would be very happy to receive those for the Commission records Mr GINZBURG through an interpreter Thank you Chairman FASCELL As you know we have received many documents from the Helsinki Group which we have been fortunate to receive have translated printed and disseminated widely to those who are interested in them Mr GrNzBURG through an interpreter During the investigation of my case the KGB showed me your Helsinki Commission documents which were distributed at the Belgrade Conference and I am very thankful to you for that and I very much support your efforts in that regard Chairman F ASCELL I was amused to learn from Mr Ginzburg that one of his interrogators or harassers was attributing a great deal of lower to me in the Soviet Union as chairman of this Commission I'd ike Mr Ginzburg to know that if I could only get my orders and directions into the Soviet Union and get the people to carry them out we really would have a change Laughter Tell Mr Ginzburg I want to thank him very much for his testimony here today We will now ask some questions of him Maybe I've overlooked these terms before but I didn't know that the Soviets had so many different kinds of categories of camps and prisons and what not What is a special regimen camp and what is a special investigatory prison Mr GrnzBURG through an interpreter Camps in the Soviet Union are divided into four categories general regimen strengthened regimen strict regimen and special regimen As a rule political prisoners are not put into the general regimen camps where the conditions are better This camp is for criminals-for minor criminal matters For l 14 more serious criminal acts there is the strengthened regimen camp In this camp are also people whom we consider to be political prisoners for example people who are sentenced for being advocates of religion for example pastors and the colleagues of Pastor Vins In this camp they are sent only after their first conviction If they are sentenced again or if they are sentenced in the way I was-as an especially dangerous state criminal-they are sent right away to a strict regimen camp Chairman FASCELL What category of camp was Mr Ginzburg in Mr GrnzBURG through an interpreter The next one Jf people are convicted a second time for especially dangerous state crimes they are sent to a special regimen camp the worst category In addition to deprivation and limitation of diet the right to correspondence and the right to receive packages they are distinguished by the fact that they are prison regimens where the prisoners during the part of the day when they are not working are in small cells They must live in small cells I have arrived from such a camp Chairman FASCELL Senator Dole Commissioner DoLE Thank you Mr Chairman Mr Ginzburg it is my understanding that you suffer from heart disease and tuberculosis Have you had an opportunity to have a good physical examination since coming to the United States Mr GrnzBuRG through an interpreter Not yet I so far have not had time but I will give you a certificate after I have had such an exam Laughter · Commissioner DoLE Well I am curious because I think you ought to take good care of yourself You are feeling better though is that correct Mr GrnzBURG through an interpreter I am very tense Commissioner DoLE Well shortly after you arrived in this country you stated that the release of some of the dissidents was an attempt to deceive President Carter and the American people I just wondered if you might elaborate on that statement Mr GrnzBuRG through an interpreter OK I'll tell you about that I only want to say one thing This humane act for the situation of human rights in our country in my opinion still has no effect on the· general situation It still is not an improvement in the human rights situation in the Soviet Union I simply cannot understand people ho think that it has such an effect If one saves a drowning person does that mean that the situation of everyone else has improved Your struggle is without doubt the struggle for human rights but in our situation this was merely a humane gesture Some people try to present this simple humane gesture as an actual improvement in the general situation The situation in the camps about which I am talking-the situation of Tykhy and Rudenko and other people I knew in the camps-still continues That is going on every day So in that case how can one even talk about a general improvement since that situation still continues and remains unchanged Commissioner DOLE I guess what I was-it has been suggested by some that perhaps the release of you Mr Ginzburg and others may have been an effort by the Soviets to soften the American attitude with reference to the so-called SALT agreement I am not certain you have any views on that I am not asking for a comment on SALT but could it be a motivation on the part of the Soviets to lull the l American people or some of us in the Congress into feeling that there is a general change in an effort to rally support for any agreement with the Soviets Mr GrNzBURG through an interpreter Well I have a different understanding of detente As Solzhenitsyn said detente can be described as asking for a handout I see a lot of other things However I am not at all a specialist in regard to military matters I do not trust the Soviet Government As far as you are conce1ned of course you have to decide that for yourselves ·· Commissioner DOLE I understand that I think you made the point that trust of the Soviets is the question that may decide SALT Whether you understand the SALT agreement or not it may be based on trusting the Soviets That is why I was interested in your analysis or views on the question of whether or not the releases were geared to create more faith in what the Soviets might do in reference to SALT Was it a Soviet trick or was it-you have indicated it was not a change in general attitude Mr GrnzBURG through an interpreter I simply cannot conceive of the possibility of the present regime becoming more liberal The present government simply cannot become more liberal I would like to add that we are grateful for your aid in this respect and that we are fighting for human rights regardless of the regime in power I am sure that at a certain point that the government will have to give way in this regard Commissioner DoLE Finally there has been-you mentioned in your statement-the so-called Jackson-Vanik Amendment Again it is a matter that will have to be resolved in the Congress of the United States There are efforts being made-and I don't judge the effortsto repeal that Amendment Again it is a question of whether or not we can have faith and trust in the Soviets to permit free emigration Do you have any comments on the amendment itself or on the broader question of faith and trust in the hope that the Soviets will relax their emigration policy Mr GINzBURG through an interpreter I am in favor of the JacksonVanik Amendment I do not think its amendment or revocation would improve the emigration situation of the Soviet Union for people wanting to emigrate but I am not a specialist on this question I would like you to take into account that I am a person who for the last 2 years has received hardly any information The situation of SALT and of amending the Jackson-Vanik Amendment-they did not tell us anything about that in camp Commissioner DoLE But the point is that you have not seen any change in the general attitude of the Soviets toward dissidents Mr GINzBURG through an interpreter No No the Soviet Government has not in one iota changed its attitude toward the dissidents Commissioner DOLE Thank you Chairman F ASCELL Senator Leahy Commissioner LEAHY Thank you Mr Chairman Mr Ginzburg you had mentioned sending information to the West How much information were you able to receive from the West Were you able to receive any directly or did it all come indirectly Mr GrnzBURG through an interpreter When I was under investigation-or rather at the end of the investigatory period I saw in the 52 volumes-which lay on the table-of the investigatory case 16 against me the documents which the American delegation had dis- tributed at Belgrade · When I was sent to camp-during the last 8 months-we basically eked out and searched out-in other words · read the Soviet newspapers very carefully-arid from the hostile articles which appeared in the Soviet press partly about the work of your Commission we could then understand to some degree what in fact was going on Commissioner LEAHY Were you aware of the very very strong support-international support-that there was for both you and your colleagues · Mr GrnzBURG through an interpreter We knew that there was strong support but how strong it was we had no idea Commissioner LEAHY You made I think an extremely important point in your statement You named people there and the fact that we have given a great deal of attention to them ·what happens though to those people whom we don't know about This also is connected with the statement that Mrs Alekseeva made We bring a lot of attention to your case to Mr Shcharansky's case and to others What happens to those people we don't know about Are they worse off or better off because we have not brought attention to their cases Mr GrnzBURG through an interpreter In fact many of them-all the people about whom I spoke in my statement are mentioned and described in the Moscow Helsinki Group documents and as a result I hope that you are well acquainted with those documents Without loubt every political prisoner is helped in a very real way by mentioning his case in the mass media especially in such mass media which reaches the Soviet Union People who are unknown and people who are not mentioned-they really live a lot worse So these people can suffer persecution and the people who perpetrate it will not have to answer for it in any way Although their regimen and the conditions under which they live are the same as ours in fact they live a lot worse Commissioner LEAHY Mr Ginzburg along with all other Members of the Congress I serve on a dozen or more committees and com- · missions and so forth but there is no Commission where I hear more heartbreaking facts than on this Commission and there is no place where I hear more disturbing stories than on this Commission Certainly the strength and the emotion of your own testimony this morning is typical of what we have heard during the years of the Commission The reason I have asked the earlier question is that the people who serve on this Commission have a great deal of feeling for you and for others who are denied your rights because of your political beliefs and what we want to do is make sure in focusing attention on what is happening is that we are not making a bad situation even worse ·· Obviously what we want to do in this Commission is to bring attention in such a way and focus world opinion in such a way that someday we will be able to remove the discrimination that occurs against people because of either religious or political beliefs 'Mr GrnzBURG through an interpreter Well your task to a great extent is the same as mine and I am very grateful for the attention hich you are focusing on my country However I would like to say that I think that such ttention to my coun ry is very ssential and perhaps to some degree 1s also good for the spmt of America Commissioner LEAHY I agree with you How aware is the average Soviet citizen of our Commission or of the various Helsinki Monitoring Groups 17· Mr GrnzBU G tlirough·an interpreter J can best talk abou_t that m regard to tlie·year 1977 when J met a lot of people Then 1t was especially at the begirniing· befor'e the election· campaign of President Carter Much was said in the Soviet tTnion about the international struggle for human rights and they also knew a lot about your Commission Under my eyes there was a noticeable shift-and I am not sure what is happening now-in the work of the Voice of America T•his is the basic s ation to ·which peo le listen in the Sovie Union here was an actual improvement but am· not sure wht tt 1s happening now Those few broadcasts which Ilistened to recently was a small extract I was somewhat surprised but I can't really judge from those the quality ofi today's present broadcasting- Then really our situation was improved and was eased because of the improved VOA broadcasts at that time Commissioner LEAHY If I could ask just one last question Mr Chairman that follows up a little bit on the question Senator· Dole was asking earlier Do you· think that at the time when the United States and the Soviet Union formally sign·a SALT agreement-something that will happen within the next few weeks-that the Soviet Union will release other political prisoners as part of a gesture of good will related to the signing of the S A'LT agreement Mr GrnzBURG through an interpret·er I don't know I can't say anything about the feelings of the Soviet Government That is not at all my specialty Good feelings and kind' feelings I never saw in that quarter at all · Commissioner LEAHY Do you think that whatever they do will be for what they think will be in the best interest's of themselves politically and not because of any sense of human respect Mr GiNz'BURG tlirough' an interpreter They only act out of self-interest Commissioner LEAHY Thank you Thank you Mr Chairman Chairman F ASCEDL Mrs Fenwick Commissioner FENWICK Thank you Mr Chairman I am interested in the question of religious freedom and the denial of it I am puzzled by the harsh treatment that is given to one form of Baptist believers as compared to another As I understand it there are the recognized Baptists and-Ms CosMAN Please speak louder Commissioner FENWICK Oh l'in• sorry I am interested in the question of religious freedom and the difference between the recognized Baptist group and the nonrecognized Baptist group Why is one group recognized and what is the difference in their activities that makes another group not recognized feel it necessary to establish themselves Mr G1NzBURG through an interpreter When religious groups register with Soviet authorities and· declare their existence a religious community acknowledges and agrees to obey and is obliged to obey Soviet laws· on religious groups Part of this legislation forbids the· participation of children and_ the religious education of children in church activities Only parents are allowed to give religious instruction to their chil ren But 'Yhat hf ppens·_in the c se of pare ts w ho simply are not equipped to give rel_1g1ous mstruct10n to their children In effect Soviet legislation on religion violates therights•of both registered and unregistered Baptists Those• who do not want to· register simply do not take on their souls that additional sin the sin of deception 1 18 1 Commissioner FENWICK I would like to ask about the Pentecostals and the Seventh Day Adventists They do instruct their own children and for that as I understand it the children may be taken away from them Is that true Mr GrnzBURG through an interpreter Yes We have many documents in the groups-in the Helsinki Groups-and we met parents who actually had been deprived of their own children We met people who were in despair Nevertheless I know the Commission has in its possession large document about the situation of the Pentecostals which I did together with Lydia Voronina who is sitting next to me here There the terrible fates of these people were described by them These people simply are stifled under the present regime Commissioner FENWICK Could I ask-is the Jewish religion among thrnie that are recognized by the state Mr GINZBURG through an interpreter Formally there are only a few churches forbidden by law by the Soviet G9vernment for example the Jehovah's Witnesses The formal prohibition of other religious groups does not exist but in effect in practice there are real prohibitions for example the impossibility of opening a new church and the impossibility of founding a new religious group of any denomination That is the same for all religious groups in the Soviet Union Commissioner FENWICK I know that many Catholic churches too have been destroyed but what I am concerned about-you SJ eak of churches I was asking about the Jewish religion which would mvolve temples or synagogues and whether the Jewish religion is recognized Are they able to have even a limited number of temptes or synagogues Are they allowed to disseminate information about their religion religious holidays and so on Are they recognized as some of them are or are they not recognized at all Mr GrnzBURG though an interpreter Yes they are acknowledged and I am sure that rabbis from the synagogue have come to America but it is such an insignificant proportion of those things which believers of any faith should have actu lly in effect it is more ridicule than the realization of religious rights Commissioner FENWICK I see Mr GINZBURG through an interpreter That is the same of Jews for Moslems for Buddists-for any religious group in the Soviet Union-the same laws exist Commissioner FENWICK And the same thing holds about the children and the education of the children-religious education Mr GINZBURG through an interpreter Yes the legislation on religion is the same for all religious groups except for those religious roups such as the Jehovah's Witnesses which are totally outlawed m the Soviet Union Commissioner FENWICK One final question-Mr GrnzBURG through in interpreter Real religious education is practically impossible in the Soviet Union For example there may be 10 rabbis for the entire Soviet Union and that is of course a ridiculous figure for such a huge country Commission FENWICK I wondered if Mr Ginzburg had brought this or was planning to bring this to the attention of the National and World Council of Churches · Mr GrnzBURG through in interpreter Yes I will Commissioner FENWICK Thank you Thank you Mr Chairman 19 Chairman F ASCELL First let me thank Lydia Voronina and you Mr Ginzburg for the fantastic work that you did together in getting the informn tion n nd editing the documents that were made availn ble to the Commission during those very difficult years and also particularly for the first report on the religious situation in the Soviet Union which wn s made part of our first Belgrade document I want to tell you that the Commission is in the process now-we are just about to publish a very importn nt document on religious believers in the Soviet Union which we think will shed a great deal of light heretofore not known Mr Ginzburg how did the Soviet citizens react to the work of your Group and to you personally Were you aware of any open or silent support of·your efforts among ordinary people in the Soviet Union Mr GrNZBURG through an interpreter We have silent and very open support-tacit support as well as open I have just read a collection of documents in my own defense-on which I have ordered the presses stopped since I no longer need any defending But I read them and cried Closest to my heart are the voices of those-even those whom I thought would never be able to express their support but they did I would like to repeat that I met a lot of people and I found support in the most varied spheres and the most varied aspects of Soviet society and Soviet life Chairman F ASCELL What is the Moscow Helsinki Group doing toda y Are there new people joining the movement and becoming active in the whole question of human rights in the Soviet Union Mr GrnzBURG through an interpreter Well I am not very well acquainted with the most recent documents of the Moscow Group That means the documents of the last year But one of the latest documents is about the fate of the Kiev psychiatrist Semyon Gluzman who has already been imprisoned for 7 years Now they are threatenin to give him a new sentence and a new term So this is one of the latest documents of the Group Yes we do have new members of the Moscow Group and other Groups I think-I am sure in fact that if other people are arrested we will get more new members as well after their arrests I would like to say here one thing that I think is very important I very often hear about dissidents as a certain group formal or not formal but a very tightly knit and closed group In actual fact dissidents although each one of them speaks for himself are simply those people who decided in a natural way to make public their views Those people are not so many They represent public opinion You should notice thn t no matter how many people they put in prison and no matter how many people they exile the number of dissidents is still the same The people-I mean here the people who are known in the West-in number remain the same I want to say that the number will always remain the same because people will always be coming up to take their places-the places of those who have been arrested and exiled This is a completely unstoppable process Chairman F ASCELL What effect did the establishment of Helsinki Monitoring Groups in the Ukraine in Lithuania in Georgia and in Armenia have on the Moscow Group Mr GrnzBURG through an interpreter Oh it was the greatest support In addition to our own problems which we understand there are those problems which are specific to each nation It was difficult for us to understand all this As soon as our group was formed we 20 were simply flooded with requests· to handle all kinds of problems including the problems·of the national republics 0f course we simply could not have handled that mass of material Here· l have seen hundreds of pamphlets on these problems 0ne simply can not deal with the mass of problems information and issues We cannot even· present all these problems to the international arena• If we had to do all of this we would not have had time to eat sleep or anything else All we would have done is simply·to tell you about all these problems and make known to you all' the documents with which we were constantly being flooded This situation is also very similar to that of the· Christian Committee for the Defense of· the Rights of Believers in the Sovret Union Simply to disseminate the reports which they receive from believers and to disseminate these reports to· the press to the Commission and to international fora-I simply would not· be able to do· this Neither would Lydia Voronina or anyone else So when these other groups were formed 1 and when Father Gleb Y akunin Victor Kapitanchuk and Varsonofy Khaibulin formed' the Christian Committee our task was eased and we could· then turn our attention to other problems There are so many problems which need discussion Chairman FAsCELL Were you aware of any human rights activities in other signatory countries particularly in the Eastern Bloc Mr GINZBURG through an interpreter Yes I knew about the movement for the defense of human rights in some countries But my information was very limited· because the radio gave us very little information say about the Polish Self Defense Committee There was more information about the Charter '77 movement However you should keep in mind·that 'am-speaking only of the period before my arrest About the others I simply have not yet had time to-acquaint myself-to read the documents andito talk to friends But1 the radio is our main source of information Chairman F ASCELL I was just about to ask Mr Ginzburg if the radio was the main source of information and-what radio particularly Mr GrnzBURG through· an interpreter Our main source of information are those stations which are not· jammed and thank God we can listen to VOA In the provinces and in some areas outside Moscow one can listen to Radio Liberty However they are improving their jamming techniques · Chairman F ASCELL What is the general feeling of the people who are able to listen either to Radio Liberty or to VOA in the Soviet Union Mr GrnzBURG through· an interpreter That is a big issue I also plan to speak about that to the VOA people There is disappointment and annoyance about the lack of understanding about the particular situation of the country to which that information is being broadcast but still that is our main source of information since we do·not have any others Chairman FASCELL Well I think· it would be very important to have those discussions withV0A because if the thrust of the information broadcast is not relevant and• is not up a to-date and is not well received then we must learn how we can improve it I gather that is what Mr Ginzburg is talking ahout 21 Mr G1NZBURG through an interpreter I think that is an excellent ii lea Some work needs to be done in this area It is so important that the people who work in these stations understand the situation of the countries to which they are broadcasting and understand that they are their only source of information Chairman FAsCELL Mr Buchanan Commissioner BucHANAN Thank you Mr Chairman Mr Ginzburg someone has said He truly loves the law who keeps it when his government breaks it I think there are millions of Americans who understand that you and your colleagues are truly great patriots of the Soviet Union When people in your country or ours or any country will stand up to their government and say You made promises at Helsinki and you must keep them and you must live up to your commitments in our own constitution and in international agreements such people are the truly great citizens of a society I think it is a great privilege for us to have you here with us as a man who is deeply admired by millions of people in this country and throughout the world I hope that your signal work can indeed be continued under present circumstances We are all grateful for your release but we are grateful even more for what you have done with your leadership Mr GINZBURG through an interpreter Thank you very much Chairman FASCELL Well Mr Ginzburg I want to thank you on behalf of the Commission If you want to say anything before we conclude here now we would be happy to hear anything that you might want to add at this point Mr GINzBURG through an interpreter Yes I would like to add that we are celebrating the anniversary today of the founding of the Moscow Helsinki Group It is so to speak a Helsinki anniversary but I am so very sorry and sad for the fate of the Russian Social Fund for the Aid of Political Prisoners Its present leaders and directors are people who are not so well known in the West and people who are very modest and I am not sure that they would like to be all that well known I ask you to watch out for them because so much depends on that and so much depends on the continuing work of the fund so that it can continue to do its charitable work in my country Chairman F ASCELL Mr Ginzburg thank you very much for appearing here today and for giving us your views and for answering our questions so patiently I want to thank Mr Nicholas Petrov who has been helping by translating English into Russian and Ms Cosman who has been translating Russian into English and English into Russian and all of you who have helped in this Commission hearing today We look forward to continued contact with you as we both continue our work Thank you very much The Commission stands adjourned subject to the call of the Chair Whereupon the Commission was adjourned at 11 25 a m 0