Vladimir (Leonidovich) Tsukerman. born in 1947. residing in Kishinev27. Gagarina blvd. 9/3. was arrested in Kishinev at the end of May 1981. and is now awaiting trial. He has arrested for his attempts to realize his legal right to emigrate to Israel in order to join me. his wife. and our son. I have been living in Israel since 1978 together with our son. He was three years old when we left the U.S.S.R. and is now six. he spent half of his childhood without seeing his father. My husband was not granted the permit to emigrate to Israel in order to join us and the refusal of the Soviet authorities to grant him the exit visa was based on the fact that he had in the past served in the Navy. He was discharged from the Navy in 1975 and after so many years the pretext used by the authorities can hardly seem justified. In recent years following our separation my husband found himself in a difficult moral and material position: he was. on one hand. deprived of all means of livelihood be being unable to find a job and. on the other hand. he was subjected to harrassment and was thrown into prison several times for his struggle to obtain an exit visa. Seeing his determination to join his family the authorities have finally removed the security consideration applied to his case and promised to let him leave the U.S.S.R. at the 20th of April 1981. This promise. however. turned out to be a cruel joke. When he came to the OVIR office to receive the emigration permit he was told that his application for emigration was rejected once again. On the 30th of May 1981. he staged a peaceful demonstration of protest against the heartless refusal of the authorities to grant him the emigration permit. For that he was arrested and charged with "disturbing public order". He was informed that he will be put on trial and according to the Soviet law this charge automatically leads to a 3 year term in labour camps with the possibility of being sent into exile afterwards.
Keywords matched
emigrate emigration visa