Twenty-two Jewish student activists for Soviet Jewry from universities throughout the country, had themselves arrested today at a protest in front of the Soviet Embassy as some 150 of their peers demonstrated in support across the street.
The protest and arrests were organized a few weeks ago by participants in the National Jewish Student Conference on Public Policy Issues, which began here last Wednesday and which is sponsored by the B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation. Although the students initiated and planned the demonstration independently of Hillel, B’nai B’rith provided transportation, while the Washington Board of Rabbis–which has sponsored four similar demonstrations since last May–sponsored the protest. A half-hour after congregating across the street from the Soviet Embassy, the 22 students–each wearing a T-shirt with the name of a Prisoner of Conscience he came to represent, and bound together by some symbolic chains of yellow ribbon–crossed the street and lined up in front of the Embassy, where a former refusenik shouted a statement on behalf of Soviet Jews in Russian over a bullhorn.
The young woman–who, according to an organizer, has not yet obtained U.S. citizenship–hurried away immediately after delivering her statement on the bullhorn.
The protest today was the fifth one since last spring in which demonstrators were arrested, according to Rabbi Bruce Kahn of the Washington Board of Rabbis. Of the 60 arrested before today, some 40 were rabbis.
One of the student organizers, Todd Dicker, of the University of Wisconsin, said the demonstration served a double purpose–to demonstrate solidarity with Soviet Jews, and to mark the tenth anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism.
However, Dicker and other students and organizers said they also wanted to protest the singling out for prosecution of the Soviet Jewry activists who demonstrate in front of the Soviet Embassy, while demonstrators at the South African Embassy are not prosecuted. Although they made clear their sympathy with the anti-apartheid campaign, the students said that the Soviet Jewry activists were being prosecuted at the Soviet Embassy’s behest.
The cases against previously arrested Soviet Jewry demonstrators are still pending. The students arrested today were expected to be charged and immediately released, pending trial, for demonstrating within 500 feet of an Embassy.
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