Eleven Soviet Jews have issued a statement protesting the detention by the KGB of Gordon Joseloff, a United Press International correspondent in Moscow, after he met with the Jews to discuss the government refusal to give them exit visas, according to the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry.
The statement noted that the KGB. confiscated “the notes which each of us had written about his own personal situation about the difficulties he had encountered on the difficult road of emigration to Israel. Each of us described his personal attitude toward the existing situation which compels us to come out and demonstrate against our forcible and illegal retention on the territory of the USSR.”
The Jews said the Soviet Union is trying to cut off all their contacts by “trying to frighten us, accusing us of fictitious deeds connected with such activities as meeting with foreign correspondents, and has now gone so far as to make direct threats against a foreign correspondent. We want the American public to remember this when they are told that the Soviet government is ready for contact and dialogue with the West.”
Joseloff was also summoned to the Foreign Ministry’s press section and warned he had engaged in “instigatory and provocative actions” and the U.S. Embassy was told the reporter might be expelled. The statement was signed by Anatoly Schransky, Valery Krizak, Arkady Luria Mark Nushpitz, Boris Tsitlonak, Lev Kogan, Leonid Tsipin, Anatoly Novikov, Arkady Rutman, Zachar Tesker and Lev Gendin.
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