Sen. Birch Bayh (D.Ind.), Pennsylvania Governor Milton Schapp and Rep. Robert Drinan (D. Mass.) insisted at a rally here Sunday that the Soviet Union must be forced to honor the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which she signed in 1958. Some 500 persons braved freezing temperatures to attend the event, sponsored by Action for Soviet Jewry and co-sponsored by the New England Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, on the Boston University campus. Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz, a civil libertarian, acted as moderator.
Bayh stated that in this Bicentennial year, “we must lift up the banner of emancipation for Soviet Jews,” He declared that freedom is not an “internal affair”–“the quest for freedom is not inhibited by national borders. We cannot trade detente for decency and coexistence for conscience. Oppression will not be halted by the timid and moderation will not penetrate the walls of Vladimir Prison.”
Vladimir Prison, the Soviet Union’s worst, currently houses seven Soviet Jewish “Prisoners of Conscience” who are subjected to subfreezing temperatures, inadequate diet and virtually no medical care, it was reported at the rally, Noting that the Helsinki agreement called for a sound commitment to human rights, Bayh stated that “this did not square with the continuing policy of Soviet discrimination against Jews.”
CHRISTIANS URGED TO JOIN STRUGGLE
To increase pressure on the Kremlin to a meaningful level, Drinan called for legislation which would apply the Jackson-Vanik Amendment to all grain deals with the Soviet Union. At present, he said, Agriculture Secretary Earl Bulz does not link free emigration with wheat sales with the USSR, Drinan, who is a Catholic priest, asked that fellow Christians join Jews in the struggle for free emigration and the release of the prisoners.
Dershowitz stated that “those prisoners with long-term sentences are being sentenced to death. These cases must be considered capital cases and must be accompanied by the outcry which accompanies the death sentence of any political prisoner.” He decried as “the most unjustifiable form of racism” protests for political prisoners in Chile, Brazil, Spain and Vietnam without mentioning Jewish political prisoners in the Soviet Union.
Schapp bemoaned the long years of oppression of “our people” and said that only by rallying together the forces of freedom in this Bicentennial year could we hope to wage an effective battle for Soviet Jews’ freedom.
Action for Soviet Jewry chairman, Robert Gordon, read telegrams of Chanukah greetings sent to the rally by top Moscow activists Alexander Slepak, Alexander Lantz, Vladimir Furman and Leonid Volvovsky. He presented a 3000-signature petition for those in Vladimir Prison to Drinan, who will hand them to the State Department for transmittal to Soviet authorities. Action for Soviet Jewry is the coordinator of Soviet Jewry activities in the greater Boston area, and is an affiliate of the union of Councils for Soviet Jews.
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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.
