The International Affairs Department of the World Jewish Congress expressed today its "deep concern" at reports of an "imminent" new series of trials of Soviet Jews pending in Kishinev. Riga and Leningrad. "This development," it said, "is an ominous sequel to the Leningrad trials of last December, when two Jews were sentenced to death and others to long terms of imprisonment." The death sentences were commuted under the force of "worldwide protests," the WJC unit said, and "it had been hoped that there would be no aftermath of the Leningrad trials and that other trials reportedly postponed would be abandoned." But, said the International Affairs Department, "in the light of the latest reports, the World Jewish Congress renews its strongest appeal, which was so nobly responded to by world opinion last December, to the international community once again to make known its abhorrence of these political trials and to seek their complete termination."
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