The Soviet Union has yet another Jewish Prisoner of Conscience, young Simon Shneerman of Kerch, sentenced to 21/2 years for “draft evasion,” according to the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) and Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (UCSJ).
Shneerman applied in July 1977 to rejoin his father in Israel, and was denied a visa on the grounds he had not completed his schooling at a technical institute. He reapplied five months later and was refused in February 1978, this time on the grounds his mother and sister had not asked to leave When they did, he was arrested on May 31, and tried on June 27. The SSSJ and UCSJ reported that the defense lawyer and the judge acted as prosecutors.”
Meanwhile, former POC Anatoly Malkin of Moscow, just released from a three-year sentence for refusing a punitive Red Army draft, has been threatened with another “draft evasion” trial, the SSSJ and UCSJ reported. Malkin and his wife are denied visas to Israel on the grounds his parents have not given their consent to his emigration.
In other developments, the two groups said that Ida Nudel, herself sentenced two weeks ago to four years’ internal exile, has refused to appeal the term as her form of protest. Tbilisi activist Dr. Grigory Goldstein met with Interior Ministry official Valentin Siderov to ask that Nudel not be subjected to harsh treatment while in transport to her place of exile, as was his brother Dr. Grigory Goldstein recently, who arrived at his labor camp covered with lice, emaciated and ill.
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.
