Three Riga Jews Arrested; Riga Jewish Family Appeal for Emigration Refused

The American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry has learned of the arrest of three Riga Jews, at least two of whom had been on a hunger strike at the Office of Registration and Visas (OVIR) in the Latvian capital. According to Richard Maass, chairman of the Conference, early reports indicated that “Yerahmiel Trubeskin (Triskin) and Munia Yechielson had launched a hunger strike in order to dramatize to the world the refusal of Soviet authorities to grant their requests to leave for Israel.” The Conference reported that the two were arrested shortly after a demonstration was launched Aug. 22. Together with a third associate, Menuha Tesel, they were sentenced last Monday to fifteen days in prison for “hooliganism.”

Maass denounced the police persecution of those Soviet Jews who “have merely utilized non-violent methods to demonstrate the denial of their human rights to their Soviet fellow-citizens and to the citizens of the world.” Maass also reported that a Riga Jewish family had sent an appeal to the UN Commission on Human Rights but that so far there has been no acknowledgement by the United Nations Human Rights Division in the Secretariat. Gregory Abramovich Glikstein, a 40-year-old engineer has requested the right to leave for Israel for himself, his wife, their two sons and parents. Their latest request was refused on July 4 but, according to Maass, “Mr. Glikstein is prepared to face the Soviet bureaucracy, once more, and request that permission be granted for his family to leave and to live as Jews in Israel.” Maass urged that American Jews and Christians join in a humanitarian effort to have those Soviet Jews who wish to do so be granted the right to leave for Israel or elsewhere.