Eighty-six members of Congress have cabled Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev urging him to take immediate steps to alleviate the harsh conditions of imprisonment of Soviet Prisoner of Conscience Anatoly Shcharansky. The Jewish activist, who has been denied wish by members of his immediate family and has been deprived of receiving many of the letters written to him by his mother, Mrs. Ida Milgrom, was sentenced last July to 13 years in prison and labor camp.
The Congressional support for Shcharansky was organized by Rep. Robert Drinan (D. Mass), chairman of the International Committee for the Release of Anatoly Shcharansky. Drinan said he received a letter from the prisoner’s wife, Avital, who resides in Israel, asking that President Carter discuss her husband’s case with Brezhnev during the prospective Soviet-American summit conference on the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT). Drinan said. “I intend to contact the White House in strong and unqualified support of Mrs. Shcharansky’s request.” The Senators signing the cable include two new members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, S. I. Hayakawa (R.Ca.) and Edward Zorinsky (D. Neb.).
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