Speech #970018502

I rise in support. as a cosponsor. of House Concurrent Resolution 50. regarding the Soviet treatment of Dr. Viktor Brailovsky and his family. Viktor and Irina Brailovsky. with their children. have been trying to emigrate from the U.S.S.R. since 1972. The result of their endeavor has been abuse and mistreatment by the Soviet authorities. Rather than being able to join his brother who lives in Israel. Viktor Brailovsky has been subjected to repeated arrests. interrogations. and imprisonment while his home has been searched and his personal papersincluding books on Jewish history and cultureconfiscated. Soon after the Madrid Review Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe opened in November 1980. the Soviet authorities again arrested Viktor Brailovsky. This time it was for his appeal to President Leonid Brezhnev to permit his own family and more than 230 other Russian refuseniks to emigrate. What a tragic irony that. at the same time East and West were meeting to review the Basket III human rights observance to which all including the U.S.S.R. had committed themselves at Helsinki. the Soviets were. once more. blatantly violating every concept of human freedom and dignity. The Madrid Conference is still in progress. It is important that we signal. by passing this resolution. not only the Soviet Union but every signatory of the Helsinki agreement that we care about human rights and that we care about Viktor Brailovsky and others like him. We are today reminding the Soviet Union that we are aware of Dr. Brailovskys plight. that we will not forget him. and that we want his freedom and the freedom of other refuseniks to emigrate from the Soviet Union.*