10 Activists Appeal to Attend Be Gun Trial Scheduled for May 6

Ten Soviet-Jewish activists who have been dismissed from their jobs for applying for exit visas to Israel, and who are now unemployed or working in fields below their training, have sent an appeal to Judge V. Avdonin, scheduled to try activist Dr. losif Begun on charges of “parasitism,” asking that they be allowed to attend the trial scheduled for May 6.

According to the appeal, which was forwarded to the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, the activists said that they should attend not only because they are friends of Begun, but because “many of us have lost our jobs after applying to emigrate.” Vladimir Lazaris, a lawyer who signed the document was recently warned by Soviet authorities that he could face similar charges.

The activists pointed out, in their joint appeal, that Begun had been dismissed from various jobs after applying to emigrate and various Soviet employment bureaus refused to help the activist find work. Nor would Soviet officials certify Begun as a Hebrew teacher. After on administrative arrest by the militia, Begun was dismissed from one job for being absent from work, as authorities refused to issue the proper certificate of arrest to his employers.

“Now, when Begun is being presented with the groundless charge of parasitism, we cannot refrain from bearing in mind past developments,” the appeal stated. “Thus the formal charge has nothing to do with his real crime (of applying to emigrate which is viewed as an anti-social act). The charge of parasitism is being presented in order to compromise him. We will be glad to find out that we were wrong in our assumptions but we would be able to attend the trial, that must be if we are not mistaken, an open one.”

Activists signing the document included Vladimir Prestin, Mark Novikov, Galina Gurevich, Ida Nudel, losif Ahs, Grigory Rozenshtein, Leonid Volvovsky, Vladimir Slepak and Pavel Abramovich.