Report 324 Visas Requested During Past 4 Months but Only 128 Granted

Jewish sources in the Soviet Union reported today that of 324 requests for exit visas filed by Moscow Jews during the past four months, only 128 were granted. Soviet authorities have claimed that 95 percent of the requested visas are granted. Jewish sources said the ratio of approved applications is seldom more than one-third. (According to a report today from London, Jewish activists in Russia say fewer Jews were permitted to emigrate in May than during the previous months.)

Meanwhile, four Jews in Kishinev have been on a hunger strike for the past five days to protest the denial of exit visas to them. They are Shimon Auerbach; Michael Maranzenbaum; Lev Strikow; and Abriam Kotler.

Jewish sources reported that the appeal of Isaac Shkolnik, a Jewish engineer from Vinnitsa recently sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for allegedly spying for Israel, will be heard on June 18 by the Trans-Carpathian Tribunal of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. The date coincides with the arrival in Washington of Soviet Communist Party Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev. Jewish circles in the USSR expressed hope that the court will refuse to uphold the stiff sentence as a good-will gesture during Brezhnev’s talks with American leaders.

But Shkolnik is reportedly having trouble getting the lawyer of his choice to represent him at the hearing and his wife and other members of his family have complained to the chairman of the tribunal. They said the prison authorities are trying to foist on him Nikolai Makarenko, the lawyer who defended him unsuccessfully at his trial and who reportedly warned him to plead guilty or face the possibility of a death sentence. Shkolnik’s family has asked permission to engage a Moscow lawyer. The authorities so far have refused to grant it.