A nationwide campaign for the release of Marina Tiemkin, a Moscow Jewish teenager who was kidnapped last year by KGB agents and brought to a “youth camp” many miles from her home after she publicly stated her desire to leave for Israel, was launched here Friday. The “Free Marina” campaign is sponsored by the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry and spearheaded by the Brooklyn SSSJ. Leaders of the Brooklyn community, including Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, Congressmen elect James Scheuer and Steven Solarz, and Brooklyn District Attorney, Eugene Gold, are involved in the campaign.
Launching the campaign at a press conference at Lincoln Square Synagogue, the SSSJ released a statement by Marina’s father. Dr. Alexander Tiemkin who is now a professor of physics at Tel Aviv University, that she was brought back to a hospital in Moscow and forcibly injected with mind-changing drugs. “Marina’s torments are the revenge of pogrom-makers for her Jewish pride and her passionate desire to live in our homeland,” Dr. Tiemkin stated. He himself was given the choice of imprisonment or leaving for Israel, and chose the latter in an attempt to gain publicity for his daughter.
An SSSJ spokesman told the press conference: “We urge the Soviet government to immediately release Marina and reunify her with her father if they truly plan to live up to the spirit of the Jackson Amendment agreement.”
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