Prisoner of Conscience Roald (Alik) Zelichonok, 50, who received a three-year labor camp sentence on August 8, 1985 for allegedly “defaming the Soviet state and social system,” has been hospitalized in the Alma Ata prison, according to Jerry Goodman, executive director of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry.
Zelichonok, a computer scientist at the Institute of Cytology in Leningrad, was arrested after police conducted a search of his home. Among the items confiscated were letters he had written to the West, including correspondence to the Spanish, Hungarian and Swedish Embassies regarding Raoul Wallenberg.
Zelichonok, who suffers from massive kidney damage, secondary hypertension and lameness (he has undergone several operations for kidney and leg ailments), was hospitalized in February for three weeks because of severe intestinal bleeding and a dramatic rise in blood pressure.
Zelichonok’s wife, Galina, who suffers from a degenerative eye disorder and is losing her sight, appealed to the International Red Cross to save her husband’s life. “A further stay in the labor camp is identical to passing a death sentence on him,” she wrote.
Since May 29–when he was on his way to the camp in Kazakhstan–there had been no information about Zelichonok. Galina appealed to the Camp Administration, to the Procurator General and to the Ministry of Interior, demanding to be informed immediately of her husband’s whereabouts.
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.
