Soviet KGB officers detained a Jewish activist from Moscow, Inna Speran-skaya-Shelmova, after they searched her apartment for seven hours last week, according to reports reaching here from the Soviet capital. The KGB officers confiscated 100 items, including tape recorders, a radio, several, copies of the now-banned “samizdat” journal, Jews in the USSR, and 450 Rubles (about $630). Police also seized two documents related to Dr. losif Begun, a friend of Speranskaya-Shelmova.
Begun, a former Soviet Prisoner of Conscience and a refusenik since 1971, who happened to be visiting Moscow and walked into her apartment as it was being searched, was also detained by the KGB. Whatever money Begun had in his pockets was also confiscated, according to the reports. Begun was banished to Siberia in the late 1970’s for his Hebrew-language activity He new lives in the town of Strunino, 60 miles from his former home in Moscow.
In another development in Moscow on Monday, police refused to allow a group of Jewish chess players to join hunger-striking refusenik and International Grandmaster Boris Gulka in a “blitz tournament” to publicize his plight. The group was detained and questioned and later released. Gulko and his wife Anna, both former national Soviet chess champions, began their fast for exit visas October 20.
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.
