Mr. Speaker. as we pray and fast today on the fifth anniversary of the trial of Anatoly Shcharansky. we should all take the opportunity to reflect on the courage and patience of the Soviet Jews who. year after year. have been denied permission to emigrate. Soviet emigration has slowed to a trickle. just onetwentieth of its 1979 peak. As worrisome are the signs that the Soviet Government is now attempting to permanently snuff out the religious and cultural life of its Jewish population. whom it would not let go free from the Soviet Union. Soviet Jews are being deliberately isolated. Increasingly. their mail is being intercepted. their telephones disconnectedeven radio jamming has increased. The recent formation by the Soviet Government of the socalled AntiZionist Committee indicates that the U.S.S.R. is attempting to institutionalize this isolation and the recent crackdown on Jewish culture. The socalled AntiZionist Committee has dismissed the emigration problem as a "juggling of figures by Zionist propaganda." One committee member went so far as to state that Israel executed Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichman "to make sure he would not be seized by another nation and make public the sacred secrets of cooperation between Zionism and Nazism." Such outrageous propaganda is clearly designed to justify to the Soviet people and to the West a Stalinlike campaign of defamation and terror against Soviet Jews. I would like to include a special dedication of todays fast and vigil to the Prutkov family. Ludmila. Alexander. and their 10yearold daughter. Ilona. have sought permission for 9 years to emigrate from the Soviet Union. Alexander Prutkovs parents left the Soviet Union and settled in Michigan 4 years ago in an effort to help their son and his family obtain exit visas. The Prutkovs apply every 6 months to leave. and every 6 months the Soviet authorities turn them down. Thousands of Soviet Jews like the Prutkovs wait. enduring uncertainty. harassment. and loss of their jobs.
Keywords matched
emigrate emigration visas