The one-year prison sentence imposed on Betzalel Shalolashvili for “draft evasion” was suspended by the Soviet authorities Wednesday on appeal. The 22-year-old student from Soviet Georgia was placed on three years’ probation instead, the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry
Two Soviet Jewry activists, Isai and Grigory Goldstein, currently on a speaking tour of the U.S., said the prison sentence was intended “to frighten other Georgian Jews from applying to emigrate to Israel and to scapegoat Shalolashvili because of the public
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