Soviet Jewish activists staged simultaneous hunger strikes this weekend in Kishinev, Riga and Leningrad to protest against the increasing numbers of Jews who are refused exit visas, it was reported today by the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. The strike in Leningrad also marked the second anniversary of the second Leningrad trial.
The NCSJ also reported that new exit visa requests by 15 Jews in Moscow were rejected last week by the ovir office and that a number of new requests were also turned down in Kiev and Tashkent. The refusals in Tashkent were ominous, the NCSJ said, because Jews from that city had no difficulties earlier in receiving visas. Among the Jews in Moscow who were turned down was Mark Azbel, the son of the former professor of chemical engineering. David Azbel.
According to a report received by the NCSJ, Evgeny Levich was not taken to a military camp but to a camp for “social and political misfits” operated by the military near Lake Baikal on the Soviet-Chinese border.
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