Abie Ingber, national coordinator of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, was dragged out of the Windsor Hotel ballroom and punched in the face repeatedly last night by Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers after he handed an appeal in favor of Soviet Jewry to United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, who was addressing the Canadian UN Association banquet. Ingber, who was accompanied by students Shelly Nadler and Berl Lazarus, tried to convey to the Secretary General the feelings of the Jewish community when the incident occurred.
Some 500 people, a number of them Jews, witnessed the incident. Waldheim told the audience that it was his intention to listen to Ingber’s appeal. “I want to say to that gentleman that since I am in office I have done all I can, and will continue to do so, for Soviet Jews and other humanitarian causes.”
In their appeal the Montreal students said: “Soviet Jews demand from the Secretary General that he stand up for the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and if he cannot speak out for this principle then we demand his immediate resignation.” Ingber, 23, a law student at McGill University, said he was punched by the police without provocation. He was not arrested, but said he would protest his treatment to the Solicitor General.
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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.
