Speech #960158795

This is not the first detention of Striltsiv for his Heisinki activities. in February of 1979 he was sentenced to 3 months of corrective labor for "resisting a representative of authority" (article 126 of the Ukrainian Code). The charge stemmed from Striltsivs participation in a strike and for allegedTy insulting the director of the school where he taught. Additional news from the U.S.S.R. indicates intensification of official Soviet repressive measures against the Pentecostal emigration movement. Boris Perchatkin. a 33yearold Pentecostal from Nakhodka on the Pacific coast and a leader in the struggle for Pentecostal emigration. has been threatened with prosecution on fabricated charges of espionagehe supposedly stole a notebook from a KGB officer and passed it on to Americans in Moscow. In May of this year. the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe released the names and addresses of 10.000 Soviet Pentecostals who have been trying unsuccessfully to emigrate. some of them for many years. Reliable sources now indicate that there are 30.000 who want to emigrate because of religious persecution. In August of this year. 20 delegates from Pentecostal communities in Ukraine. Byelorussia. the Baltic republics. Russia and Siberia met to form a Council of Pentecostal Churches to coordinate attempts to gain freedom of religion and to aid those Pentecostals who wish to emigrate. Only representatives from the Caucasus did not show up at this unofficial meeting. The Pentecostal community also is disturbed by the disappearance of Fyodr Sidenko. 41yearold Pentecostal activist. who was picked up by police at his home a month ago. Even his family has not been informed of his whereabouts. Sidenko. a friend of Aleksandr Ginzburg with whom he was imprisoned in the 1960s. has been trying to emigrate for many yearsand this was the reason for his first sentence. Today. two young Pentecostals are to stand trial in Bataisk. Russia. on charges of refusing a second term of army service. Vladimir Morozov. 23. and Ilya Goretoi. 25. face criminal charges of avoiding military service. They refuse to serve because they fear that this will become a further impediment to emigration. for which they have been waiting 3 years. Frequently. if a Soviet citizen serves in the army. then he cannot emigrate for at least 5 years after his period of military services because he supposedly has knowledge of military secrets. It is in such a manner that the Soviet Government continues to act and then expresses irritation when others raise their voices in protest against these deplorable repressive actions being perperated by the Soviet Government. But. if the Helsinki Accords are to have any meaning for the dignity and freedom of the individual. the other signatories must express their protests on the actions taken.O