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Petition Protests Soviet Group

June 16, 1983
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
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Petitions bearing nearly 1,000 signatures were presented at the gates of the Soviet Embassy here this afternoon in the course of the daily vigil for Soviet Jews. But the Embassy refused to accept them and the gates were slammed shut.

The petitions, sponsored by the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Greater Washington and the Soviet Jewry Committee of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington, deplored the recently established “Anti-Zionist Committee of the Soviet Public” in Moscow and demanded freedom for Jewish “prisoners of conscience” and free emigration for all Soviet Jews.

The petition, though refused at the Embassy, will be conveyed to the Soviet authorities through Administration channels.

Meanwhile, a group of Jewish leaders headed by Theodore Mann, chairman of the National Conference for Soviet Jewry, met with Secretary of State George Shultz at the State Department late this afternoon to discuss recent developments affecting Jews in the USSR. They presented the Secretary with a report titled “Andropov’s Jewish Policy — An Analysis of the New Offensive Against Soviet Jews.”

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