Religious leaders are particularly susceptible to house searches and arrests for no legitimate reason. These persons are singled out to symbolize the potential fate of anyone who tries to threaten the totalitarian state. In recent years. there have been approximately 20.000 Russian Christians who have applied to emigrate to escape their unbearable existence under Soviet rule. Yet. their applications to emigrate are repeatedly denied without official explanations. Furthermore. emigration policy in the USSR is a costly. controlled and selective process which ds particularly discriminating to minorities. For many it becomes a futile. nightmarish experience. Applicants systematically are demoted or fired from their jobs. harassed. followed. watched. searched. interrogated. silenced by being sent to psychiatric hospitals. and ultimately imprisoned or banished to Siberian hard labor camps.
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emigrate emigration