The National Conference on Soviet Jewry confirmed today that Anatoly Sharansky is presently being held at Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison where he is undergoing preliminary questioning pending a full investigation of allegations of espionage and treason that could lead to his trial. The NCSJ said that while no formal charges have been made yet, if tried and convicted Sharansky would face the death penalty or 15 years in a forced labor camp.
The 29-year-old emigration activist was arrested on a Moscow street yesterday by eight Soviet secret police operatives. The allegations against him stem from a March 4 article in the Soviet government newspaper Izvestia which linked Sharansky and fellow-activists Vladimir Slepak and Alexander Lerner to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). All three have denied the allegation.
The three men and their families have been seeking emigration visas for years without success. Sharansky’s wife, Natalia, has been in Israel for the past two years waiting for her husband to be allowed to leave the USSR. She is coming to the U.S. Sunday under NCSJ sponsorship to plead his case.
The NCSJ noted that the last time treason charges were brought against Jewish activists was at the 1970 Leningrad hijack trial. Two of the defendants. Edouard Kuznetsov and Aleksei Murzhenko, were sentenced to death but their sentences were later commuted to 15 years’ hard labor after a wave of protests from the West.
FANNING ANTI-JEWISH HATE
Sharansky had been under daily surveillance in recent weeks by 6-8 secret service men prior to his arrest. He and Slepak recently filed a suit for defamation against the authorities based on the screening of an anti-Jewish television documentary titled “Buyers of Souls.” The program was aired twice in the past month during prime time and appears to be aimed at the Soviet masses.
This act, among others, is causing serious concern among Jews who fear that the Soviet authorities are deliberately trying to create a climate for anti-Jewish acts among the populace. According to the NCSJ, a number of Moscow Jews are talking about a “climate of fear” presaging a wider crackdown by security forces against Jewish activists.
They believe that the KGB has been given a freer hand to persecute Jews as evidenced by a series of actions that have taken place in the last few weeks. They include the escalation of anti-Jewish propaganda, such as the TV documentary, threats of arrests made to at least a half dozen Jews and the ban on the import of baked goods which appears to be directed against parcels of Passover matzohs sent to Jews from abroad, the NCSJ said.
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.
