Igor Guberman, a 44-year-old Soviet Jewish activist, will be brought to trial on March 11 after being held in prison incommunicado since his arrest last Aug. 13, the National Conference on Soviet Jewry reported today. Guberman, a writer and author of popular science books, has been active in the Jewish cultural movement in Russia and was a contributor to the samizdat (unofficial) publication “Jews in the USSR.”
According to the NCSJ, Guberman was harassed by the Soviet secret police since 1978 when he first applied for emigration for himself and his wife and two children. He was arrested, the NCSJ reported, after he refused to cooperate with the KGB which was seeking information on the Jewish cultural movement in the USSR. He has been charged with trafficking in stolen icons. Since his arrest, Guberman, who lived in a town near Moscow, was permitted to see no one except his lawyer.
The NCSJ reported that Jewish sources in Moscow are concerned that Guberman’s trial will signal a new crackdown on emigration activists’ and dissidents. Although other activists have been tried in the past on false charges, none has been brought to trial recently. The NCSJ noted that until Guberman’s trial was announced, the Soviet authorities had limited themselves to harassment and imprisonment for periods of up to 15 days, the maximum allowed by Soviet law without formal charges.
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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.
