The Labor Party expressed “deep concern” today over the “secrecy” of the Leningrad trial and “anxiety about the possible implications.” The statement by the opposition party said it “believes that the restrictions placed by the Soviet government on the freedom of Jews in the USSR to emigrate is a root cause of anxiety and distress among the Jewish community of the USSR,” and urged the Kremlin “not to make the trial of the alleged hijackers a starting point for future acts of discrimination and repression against Soviet Jews.” The British Labor Zionist movement declared today that “the savage sentences imposed at Leningrad and (on six Basque separatists in Burgos. Spain, show once again the evils of totalitarianism.” It added that “Together with socialists everywhere we shall continue the struggle for the victory of democratic forces all over the world.” Lord Janner told some 1500 guests at the Jewish National Fund Chanukah banquet here that all-out pressure must be exerted on the Soviet Union to revoke the sentences. “By its action, the Soviet Union stands disgraced in the eyes of the world,” he declared.
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