Thirty-seven Jews were arrested Dec. 10–Human Rights Day–in connection with their attempted peaceful demonstration for emigration rights at the United Nations Information Center in Moscow, the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry reported today. According to the report, based on a telephone conversation with Mrs. Leila Kornfeld, a Jewish activist, 10 of the Jews were arrested as they left their homes and 27 were seized at the UN center.
Mrs. Kornfeld said a Soviet official told the Jews: “You have no right to insist on your human rights.” All the prisoners were released, she noted, but fear reprisals. The SSSJ added that no visas for Israel have been issued in Moscow for two weeks. At the UN, a spokesman said he had no information on the reported arrests. The information from Mrs. Kornfeld came after the Soviet authorities lifted a nine-day ban on phone calls to Moscow, according to the SSSJ. Mrs. Kornfeld was phoned by a student at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. Similar calls were made to another Jewish activist, Gavriel Shapiro, from SSSJ members in Minneapolis and St. Louis.
The student group also reported that Viktor Maximenko, a 19-year-old Moscow Jewish activist, faces an army draft Friday following his renunciation of his Soviet citizenship Nov. 15. Maximenko had applied for migration to Israel in September. The SSSJ said the move to draft him was an attempt at “retaliation” for that application, and that friends of the activist were making a “desperate attempt” to try to have his induction cancelled.
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