Speech #960171897

We all have supported at every opportunity the National Council of Soviet Jewry and other groups like it to secure the release of Soviet Jews persecuted because of their faith. This work will continue as it must. Our purpose then is to launch a major national effort. similar to the one which is ongoing on behalf of Russian Jewish dissidents. aimed at releasing Christian dissidents now imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain and securing the rights of these people and other Christians to emigrate freely. The first of these resolutions expresses the sense of Congress that the President and any other appropriate official within the executive branch make it known to the Soviet Union in unequivocal terms that this country strongly disapproves of the religious harassment of Christians and of the restrictions on the freedom of such Christians to emigrate. It further states that the United States expects the Soviet Union to honor its commitments under the Helsinki accords. The second resolution. first introduced by Representative KEMP on July 13. gives the names of several persons of many different ethnic heritages who have been persecuted by the Soviet Government or its satellite Communist governments. in the hopes that focusing attention on these persons will emphasize the strong need for the reestablishment of standards of human rights outlined in the Helsinki accords and subsequently ignored by the Soviet Union.