Mr. Speaker. the calculated invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union brings a new dimension to the question many of us have been asking for so many years: What is next for Soviet Jews? The new angle. of course. is that with no reason to please the West. the Soviets can easily cut back on emigration and step up harassment and intimidation of Soviet Jews. In a gloomy forecast by the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews it is stated. "Monthly figures of thousands leaving the Soviet Union could well become a pleasant memory. The antiSemitic campaign prominently featured in the Soviet press could lead to violence against the Jews in a society which needs a scapegoat for its ills." With this in mind. we must make it perfectly clear to the Russians that we have in no way abandoned our friends and families in the Soviet Union who are locked inside because of cruel and arbitrary emigration policies. I remind the Soviets that they willingly signed the Helsinki accords which allow for the reunification of families separated by political boundaries. One of the individuals most on my mind today is Anatoly Shcharansky who just spent another birthday locked in a Soviet prison.
Keywords matched
emigration