Soviet authorities are being accused of various forms of harassment, intimidation and Isolation to prevent Jews from applying for exit visas to go to Israel. According to Jewish sources in the Soviet Union, these methods exemplified in one Instance by malpractice and Bribery charges brought against Dr. Mikhail Stern In Vinnitsa, Ukraine, are being used to circumvent the Soviet undertakings, cited in the Oct. 18 exchange of letters between U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and Sen. Henry M. Jackson, to end harassment and allow Jews and others to emigrate.
Dr. Stern, 56, who was to have gone on trial Monday, had his trial postponed to Dec. 10 because of illness. He is said to be suffering from tuberculosis and internal bleeding in addition to a heart condition. The physician has been charged under clause 168, sect. 2 of the Soviet Penal Code which deals with bribery and carries a maximum penalty of death.
He has also been charged under clause 143 of the Ukrainian Penal Code which carries a maximum penalty of ten years imprisonment and exile for up to five years. The allegations against Dr. Stern, which Jewish sources say are totally unfounded, claim that he took bribes from patients to provide them with generally unobtainable drugs.
WARNING TO OTHER SOVIET JEWS
Another unsubstantiated charge that he had deliberately poisoned patients in order to treat them was dropped by the authorities following a world-wide protest. Jewish sources said that Dr. Stern was arrested last May because his sons had applied for emigration visas.
His case is seen as an attempt by Soviet authorities to intimidate other Soviet Jews from applying for visas, the implication being that if they do, members of their families could be arrested on trumped-up charges, the sources said. Although Dr. Stern has been under detention for six months, his defense lawyer, A. Axelband, of Moscow, was given his file only on Nov. 25, a week before the trial was scheduled to start.
Last weekend nearly 1000 British doctors. including Lord Moran who had served during World War II as Winston Churchill’s personal physician, and Sir Stewart Duke-Elder, the world famous ophthalmic surgeon, signed a petition to the Soviet authorities protesting against the treatment of Dr. Stern. Some 50 of the petitioners held a vigil last Sunday outside the Soviet Embassy. When a delegation of doctors tried to present the petition to the Soviet Embassy It was refused. This created astonishment among the doctors and in wider circles.
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