These are the lives and the liberty of innocent men and women who desire only to be free. More than the numbers themselves are wrong and misleading. What the Brezhnev numbers cover up is an organized system of repression in the Soviet Union that terrorizes and intimidates those who wish to emigrate to the point where many are afraid to apply. Applicants are immediately fired from their jobs. and often the elderly lose their pensions and the young are often expelled from school. Applicants are brutally harassed and mistreated by the secret police. and many have been sent to the infamous labor camps. to prison and to mental institutions. Despite these inhuman measures. more than 110.000 brave men and women have placed themselves in jeopardy by securing from abroad the documents necessary to file emigration applications. And there they remain. in the Soviet Union. making a mockery of Mr. Brezhnevs assertion that 95 percent of those wishing to emigrate are free to do so. How many thousands more would apply if emigration were as free as Mr. Brezhnev says it is cannot be estimated. Finally. there are several hundred persons in the Soviet Union.
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emigrate emigration