A thirty-minute documentary filmed clandestinely under conditions of great danger in Soviet prisons and labor camps, which depicts the life of terror led by political prisoners, has been smuggled to the West and will be distributed throughout the world. According to Avraham Shifrin, an aliya activist now in Israel, who spoke at a press conference here, release of the film was timed to coincide with the Belgrade conference, where among other topics, the liberalization promised by the Soviets at the Helsinki conference will be examined by the Western countries.
According to Shifrin, there are at least 700 prisons and labor camps, which hold political prisoners from various countries, including the U.S., France, England, Spain, West Germany, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Greece, Turkey and Japan. Shifrin said that only pressure from the free world can improve the prisoners’ situation.
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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.
