Iosif Begun, Soviet Jewish activist from Moscow who was seized by Soviet police while attempting to enter the American Embassy in Moscow last month, is under arrest on charges of vagrancy, according to reports reaching the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. Begun, a mathematician, first applied for an exit visa to Israel in 1971 and has been unable to work in his profession since first applying. Sources indicate Begun was arrested March 3. and could face a sentence of up to two years in a Soviet prison camp.
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