Mr. Speaker. in a concerted effort to improve emigration for Soviet dissidents and refuseniks. many of my colleagues and I have been drawing attention to individual cases of Soviet Jews being denied permission by their government to join their families in either Israel or the United States. Every single case is a tragic story and for us. who often take human rights for granted. it is somehow difficult to imagine what it actually means to live under a restrictive system. to experience the denial of basic human rights each day. We hear increasingly about the liberalization of Soviet emigration policiesabout 50.000 visas which are expected to be issued in 1979and sme of us might believe that the Soviet Union is actually granting free emigration to Soviet Jews. However. for every single visa being granted. there are. at the same time. innumerable applications being refused. Now. in these discussions about human rights. we are concerned about the cases where basic human rights are denied. Human rights are either granted or not granted. as long as they are applied selectively they simply do not exist.
Keywords matched
emigration visas visa