Leningrad activist Nadezhda Fradkova has ended her two-month hunger strike, it was reported today by the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. Fradkova, 36, had been force-fed in a Leningrad hospital since she began her strike on December 26.
According to the Conference, she first applied for an exit visa in 1978 but was refused because Soviet authorities claimed that her father was engaged in security work as the deputy director of the Leningrad construction bureau. The Conference noted, however, that Fradkova’s parents had divorced when she was six months old and that she has never had close contact with her father.
Fradkovd graduated in 1968 from Leningrad University with a degree in mathematical linguistics. After she was first refused an exit visa in 1978 she reapplied again at various times but was refused each time. She protested by staging hunger strikes.
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