The wife of imprisoned Jewish activist Anatoly Shcharansky told Israel Radio today that her husband, now in the tenth year of a 13-year prison sentence imposed in 1977, has been given an additional five-month sentence to be served in isolation in a prison compound in the Soviet labor camp where he is now confined.
Avital Shcharansky said she learned from friends in Moscow that he was being punished for going on a hunger strike recently to protest the non-delivery of his mail by the camp authorities. Last year he spent 55 days in an isolation cell where, according to Mrs. Shcharansky, prisoners are fed once every two days.
She said that her husband’s mother, who also lives in Israel, has not had direct word from Anatoly since the beginning of October. His last letter, supposed to have been sent at the beginning of December, has not been received. It was then that her inquiries led to the information that he was given a new sentence.
Shcharansky, 38, a scientist and emigration activist, was arrested March 15, 1977 on charges of treason and spying for the United States. He was sentenced to three years in prison and 10 years in a labor camp. He is presently in a labor camp in the Ural mountains.
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