Irwin Cotler, a McGill University professor who attended a political science congress in Moscow last week, reported that he was ousted from the Soviet Union and he flew to London on a Japanese. Airline flight yesterday afternoon. Cotler, who is the appointed lawyer of the Shcharansky family and has prepared a 900-page brief in defense of Anatoly Shcharansky, the Jewish Prisoner of Conscience, met while in Moscow, with numerous refusniks and paid a visit to Prof. Alexander Sakharov, the Nobel Prize scientist.
Cotler said that all his requests for an interview with Soviet officials were rejected. Cotler was on his way to a Moscow suburb in the company of refusnik Prof. Alexander Lerner to congratulate Shcharansky’s parents, who were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary yesterday with a one-day hunger strike in protest against the treatment of their son, when the car they were in was stopped by the police. Lerner was arrested and Cotler was told that he had to immediately leave the Soviet Union. Cotler, who is now in London on his way home, will hold a press conference here upon his return here tomorrow.
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.
