Students representing all British universities marched to the Soviet Embassy in London yesterday, protesting against the treatment of Soviet Jewry and leaving a petition, signed by 5,000 students and faculty members calling for an alteration of Moscow’s policy toward Russian Jews.
The petition called for religious and cultural rights for Soviet Jewry, equal to the rights granted to members of all other minority groups in the USSR; eradication of anti-Semitism in the USSR; granting Soviet Jews the right to unite with their families abroad, separated by war; and granting the rights of emigration to all USSR Jews who wish to leave their country.
Lord Bertrand Russell, the British philosopher, issued a statement declaring: “I am very happy that students of British universities are engaged in a special effort to make the facts more known. Discrimination against Jews in the USSR, like persecution of dissident intellectuals, seriously impairs the development of the Soviet Union as a true Socialist society, and hinders the efforts of all those working for international coexistence.”
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