Hundreds Rally to Protest Against Pending Trial for Two Soviet Jews

Several hundred students and faculty members of Tel Aviv and Bar Ilan Universities, joined by many immigrants from the Soviet Union, demonstrated yesterday to protest the pending trial on unspecified charges of two Jewish activists in Moscow–Mark Nashpitz and Boris Tsitlionok.

The demonstration, which was attended by the mothers of the two men, took place outside the Embassy of Finland which handles Soviet affairs in Israel. A note was presented to a Finnish representative urging his government to use its good offices with the Soviet government to secure the release of Nashpitz and Tsitlionok or to publish the charges against them and assure them of a fair trial. A copy of the note was sent to the International Federation of Jurists.

Nashpitz and Tsitlionok were part of a group of seven Jewish activists arrested Feb. 24 while demonstrating for exit visas outside the Lenin Library in Moscow. They alone have been held for trial.

The demonstrators here, among them Silva Zalmanson, who came to Israel last year after serving a 3 1/2-year prison sentence, said that the charges against Nashpitz and Tsitlionok–if there are any charges–should be made public or else the men should be released. They also demanded that if a trial takes place, neutral lawyers be permitted to attend as observers.

100 SOVIET JEWS SIGN APPEAL

According to reports yesterday from Moscow, more than 100 Soviet Jews in 14 cities signed an appeal for their release. The appeal, handed to Western newsmen, claimed that Nashpitz and Tsitlionok face trial only because they demanded exit visas and sought to focus world attention on the plight of other Soviet Jews imprisoned for the same reason. According to the Moscow report, they are being held in Butyrka jail.