Zand in Letter to Thant, UN Rights Commission Writes Family in ‘critical Situation’

Describing himself as “a former citizen of the USSR,” Prof. Mikhail I. Zand of Moscow has advised Secretary General Thant and the Human Rights Commission, as well as the Soviet leadership, that he and the other six members of his family “are in a critical situation.” Zand, whose attempts to migrate to Israel have been rebuffed by the Soviets since he gave up his Soviet citizenship May 13 and whose visa permit has been postponed for an “indefinite period,” made his plea known in a letter delivered to Thant today by Israeli Ambassador Yosef Tekoah Zand registered his “categorical protest in connection with the Shameful and illegal acts committed toward me and my family,” who gave up their apartment and belongings and are being “forcibly detained” and “deprived of every means of subsistence.” Zand called the Soviet policy “a crude mockery of elementary human rights and a manifestation of inhumanity on the part of the Ministry of Interior of the USSR, as it is known that I am an invalid and my wife and my mother are sick.”