David Azbel, a 62-year-old physics professor in Moscow, will begin his hunger strike Feb. 1, ‘it was reported here today by the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. His hunger strike is in protest against the treatment of Soviet dissidents Andrei Sakharov and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as well as over the denial of an exit visa to himself. According to the SSSJ, Prof. Azbel will be joined in the hunger strike by three of his friends: Prof. Vitaly Rubin, an expert on China; Benjamin Gorokhoz, a screenwriter; and Anatoly Galatsky, an artist. Prof. Azbel, who was a prisoner in forced labor camps between 1935 and 1951, first applied for his visa in April, 1972. His friends have also applied for visas but have been turned down.
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