Speech #970039388

I want to thank my distinguished colleague and neighbor. Congressman MIcHAEL BARNES. for providing leadership and organizing the "Call to Conscience" Congressional Vigil for Soviet Jewry. My assignment and responsibility in this effort is to speak to the plight of Mikhail Salman. a student who was arrested on May 17 on charges of "parasitism" for the crime of merely seeking to emigrate from the Soviet Union. Mr. Salman was refused permission to emigrate in December 1978. on the basis of secrecy. After applying to emigrate Mr. Salman was no logner allowed to pursue his studies leading to the trumped up charge of "parasitism" and his arrest. It must be continually repeated to the Soviet leaders that the right to emigrate is a basic human right embodied in article 13. paragraph 2. of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe: Final Act (Helsinki Final Act). This is no time for quiet diplomacy. We must speak forcefully and with a firm standard for all on human rights.