Mr. Speaker. as a cosponsor of House Joint Resolution 373. I would like to urge my colleagues to support passage of this resolution which concerns the rights of Soviet citizens to practice their religion and to emigrate. Passage of this legislation will place this issue among those to be raised at the Geneva meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. During the last several months. the deterioration of Soviet Jewish life has reached alarming proportions. Persecution has increased for Jews who dare to apply for permission to emigrate from the Soviet Union. The loss of employment. daily harassment. beatings. elimination of telephone communication. arrests. and long prison sentences or internal exile on such spurious charges as "malicious hooliganism" or "parasitism" make up the core of systematic persecution encountered by the Jewish citizens of the Soviet Union. Jews who dare to expect and demand their right to religious expression and their right to emigrate face this kind of severe punishment. And many Soviet Jews who wish to be reunited with their loved ones have suffered under these conditions for years. The situation for them and for other Jewish citizens is now worse than ever before.
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emigrate