Zakhar Zunshain, a Soviet Jewish activist being held incommunicado in a Riga jail, began a hunger strike yesterday to protest the refusal of the prison authorities to provide him with a pencil and paper to write to his lawyer, the National Conference on Soviet Jewry reported here today.
The 33-year-old physicist was charged last month with “defaming the Soviet State” an offense under Art. 183-I of the Latvian Criminal code which carries a maximum penalty of three years in a labor camp, the NCSJ reported.
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