Vigil 1980" on behalf of Yankel Alexandrovich Groberman. The Spirit of Helsinki Vigil being maintained by the U.S. Congress is on behalf of all prisoners of conscience and all who are being detained in the Soviet Union as a result of that Governments repressive emigration policies. In 1975. 35 nations signed the Helsinki Final Act. which committed the 35 signatory nations to pursue policies consistent with basic principles of human rightsincluding the reunification of divided families whose members live in different countriesreligious freedom. minority rights. and free travel between countries. We who take freedom from such harassment for granted must do all we can to change these practices. Today. I would like to bring to my colleagues attention the plight of a 31yearold refusenik from Beltsy. He has been applying for an exit visa since March 1973. His wife and 5yearold son live in Israel. as do his parents. Since his occupation has been that of laborer. Soviet offices could not deny him permission to emigrate on the basis of state secrets gathered through work. Instead. they based their rejection on "army secrets". even though his group was demobilized in 1969. In November 1978. just as Yankel Groberman was finally about to leave the U.S.S.R.. he was arrested and refused permission to emigrate once again. this time on the dubious grounds that he was needed as a prosecution witness at a trial. Then. in January 1979. Yankel and two other refliseniks were sitting in a cafe when seven young nonJews entered and began shouting derogatory antiSemitic remarks at them.
Keywords matched
emigrate emigration visa