Speaker. as a member of the 97th Congressional Class for Soviet Jewry. I feel that the situation facing many of the refuseniks in Russia should be brought to the publics attention. The fact is that the number of Jews permitted to leave the U.S.S.R. in 1981. with Israeli visas. reached the lowest point in a decade. This decline must not go unnoticed and moreover should not be condoned by the lack of response by those of us who feel it is clearly the result of unfair treatm nt. The Class for Soviet Jewry has set forth to raise this issue through the sponsorship by Members of Congress of a refusenik family. My family is Mikhail and Natalia Kozanevich. Mikhail is a r.ito engineer who lost his Job when hL applied to emigrate in 1973. Since that time. the Kozanevichs have been the target of intensive KGB harassment both because of their desire to emigrate and because of Mikhails role in the founding of a Jewish cultural club in Leningrad. The abuses that this family is subjected to include the disconnection of their phone and a continual filtering of the mail that is allowed to be delivered to them. The recognition of the plight of these prisoners of conscience is an important element in reminding the U.S.S.R. that their emigration policies and methods of intimidation of cultur. al diversity will not go unnoticed by concerned Americans.*
Keywords matched
emigrate emigration visas