Soviet Jewish Activists Malkin, Roitburd and Silntisky Face Trial

Anatoly Malkin, a 21-year-old Jewish activist from Moscow, is scheduled to go on trial in that city Aug. 18 on charges of “draft evasion,” It was reported here today by the National Conference on Soviet Jewry and the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. If convicted, he faces up to three years in prison, Malkin, whose emigration permit was denied due to lack of the officially required parental permission, was arrested last May 27 after he addressed an appeal to Soviet Defense Minister Andrei Crechko.

The SSSJ also reported that Aleksandr Silnitsky, son of Prof, Feival Silnitsky of Krasnodar University, is also expected to be tried “any minute” on the same charges as Malkin, Last Friday, Yacov Vinarov, 21, of Kiev was sentenced by the city court to three years in jail for “draft evasion” after he was refused permission last March to emigrate to Israel.

According to the NCSJ, other young Soviet Jewish refusniks now threatened with punitive conscription for their emigration-related activities are: Simeon Pevsner (Moscow). Leonid Levit (Tiraspol), Leonid Greenshtein (Odessa), Yuri Yukhananov and Valery Safanov (Derbent), Zakhar Braginsky (Dnepropetrovsk), and Boris Levitas (Kiev).

In a related development, the NCSJ reported that Lev Roitburd of Odessa, who was charged with “resisting arrest” last July, is scheduled to go on trial tomorrow, Roitburd started out for Moscow where he apparently planned to consult doctors regarding surgery for his son but was stopped by six men in civilian clothes and taken into custody. The prosecutor claimed that Roitburd struck one of them and resisted arrest. His scheduled trip to Moscow coincided with the visit of a U.S. Senatorial delegation, whom he hoped to contact.