The leader of an international group of Jewish women expelled from Yugoslavia yesterday claimed today that their trip there had been successful even though they had been prevented from holding a silent demonstration for Soviet Jewry outside the conference on European Security and Cooperation.
Mrs. Doreen Gainsford, chairman of the Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry, said that the women, who had come to Belgrade from 12 Western countries, had all contacted their countries’ delegations there and asked them to raise the plight of Soviet Jewry during the forthcoming review of the 1975 Helsinki agreement. Because of their ouster they had not been able to unfurl their banners or deliver a letter to the chairman of the conference. The banners bore the slogan “Make the Helsinki Agreement Mean Freedom for Sharansky, Begun and all Soviet Jews.” They said the letter would be posted to Belgrade.
ACCOSTED AT HOTEL
They also sent documents about Soviet Jewry to the heads of government of the participating countries. With Gainsford at a press conference today were Linda Isaacs and Pat Allin of Britain and Anna May Silver from Canada. Plain clothes police had approached them at their hotel and asked them to accompany them. They refused and were carried bodily to a lorry which drove them to the airport. The police would not allow them to contact their embassies. The British Embassy was alerted by a British businessman who witnessed the commotion in the hotel.
The women said they were held incommunicado most of yesterday and told they would not be allowed to leave the country until they had signed a form. They refused to do so. Late in the afternoon the British and West German consuls arrived. Shortly afterwards they were put on aircraft to their countries of origin.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
