Two of the seven Jewish activists arrested while demonstrating for exit visas outside the Lenin Library in Moscow Feb. 24 are being held for trial on “unspecified charges,” it was reported by the National Conference on Soviet Jewry and the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. The two are Mark Nashpitz and Boris Tsitlionok. The other demonstrators were given 10-15-day jail sentences for “hooliganism” or were released after questioning, the NCSJ said.
Another activist, Anatoly Sharansky, who accompanied relatives of Nashpitz and Tsitlionok to KGB headquarters to inquire about the two men, said they were told by an official that they “will certainly need the help of a lawyer.” Sharansky said that the chief of the KGB’s investigation department, surnamed Kashtanov, confirmed that Nashpitz and Tsitlionok were in prison “under investigation.” He would not specify the charges because of “the security of the investigation,” Sharansky reported.
Nashpitz, a 27-year-old dentist, has been trying to get an exit visa for four years, without success. In 1972 he was sentenced to one year at “correctional labor” for allegedly evading military call-up as a reserve officer. A SSSJ spokesman said the impending trial of Nashpitz and Tsitlionok is linked with possible trials of Jews in Leningrad and Minsk designed to intimidate other Jews seeking exit visas.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
