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Jewish Women Demonstrate for Visas at Moscow Film Fest

July 30, 1971
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Ten Jewish women from Moscow and Lithuania demonstrated for six and a half hours yesterday at the entrance to the Moscow Film Festival, Jewish sources here said today. The women, who stood outside the entrance from noon to 6:30 p.m., apparently did not make use of signs or chants but just aligned themselves quietly in such a way as to make their intention clear. Before their arrival they cabled Communist Party leader Leonid I. Brezhnev, Premier Alexsei N. Kosygin and President Nikolai V. Podgorny explaining that they had been refused exit visas and that their pleas on behalf of Soviet Jewish emigration had been rebuffed at part headquarters and at the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The sources also reported that four young Jewish activists were arrested in Moscow and presumably released after they tried to speak with Western newsmen. They were identified as Isaiah Averbuch, the fiance of the imprisoned nurse Ruth Aleksandrovich: Aleksander Slepak, Leonid Tsipin and Josef Bigun. The sources said they were warned by the KGB (secret police) not to approach any more foreign newsmen or they would be charged with hooliganism and other transgressions. It was not immediately clear it these arrests were identical to those reported earlier as having occurred Monday; at that time three Jews were said to have been involved.

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