Mr. Speaker. I rise in strong support of House Concurrent Resolution 100. which calls on the President to continue to press the Soviet Union to permit the emigration of the Christian Pentecostal families who wish to leave the U.S.S.R. and to make sure that those members of the Vashchenko and Chmykhalov families who took refuge in the American Embassy In Moscow will receive our continued protection until such time as they are permitted to emigrate. This is an especially dramatic example of the extreme insensitivity of the Soviet Government toward human beings who merely want to practice their religion. The Pentecostals have been denied the right to do and have faced harassment and imprisonment for pursuing their religion. In addition. their pleas to emigrate to another country where they would be free to practice their faith have been denied in complete contradiction to the Soviet constitution as well as various international agreements which the Soviet Union has signed. guaranteeing both freedom of religion and emigration. If the Soviet Union had any sense of decency. the Pentecostal Christian families and other religious groups who wish to emigrate from the Soviet Union would be permitted to do so. I urge my colleagues to express the full support of the Congress for this resolution.*
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emigrate emigration