Speech #980151486

Mr. Speaker. today marks the start of the 1984 Call to Conscience Vigil for Soviet Jews. As in the past. the vigil will focus the attention of both the Congress and the public on the plight of Soviet Jews seeking freedom of religion and the right to emigrate. Despite the signing of the 1975 Helsinki Accords. whereby the Soviet Union agreed to accelerate the processing of exit visas for minoritiesespecially in those cases where family reunification is an issuethe number of Jews allowed to leave the Soviet Union has steadily declined in recent years. In 1983. Soviet Jewish emigration declined to its worst level in more than a decade. Only 1.315 were granted permission to emigrate. 50 percent fewer than in the previous year and 97 percent fewer than in 1979. when 51.000 were permitted to emigrate. The Soviet Government has said that all those wishing to emigrate have already done so. Yet. there are over 50.000 Jewish refuseniksthose who have applied for permission to emigrate and have been refusedstill living in the Soviet Union. Ironically. the worlds third largest Jewish population must live in a country that does not want them and will not let them go. The statistics alone. however bad. do not even begin to describe the critical lack of respect for basic human rights and freedoms in the Soviet Union. The statistics do not describe the harassment. arrests. and imprisonment that many Soviet Jews have had to endure. Nor can they possibly reveal the anguish of family separation or the frustration at being cut off from ones professional community simply because one has applied for permission to emigrate. And there is still a more ominous side to the story. The Soviet antiZionist committee last year began a vigorous attack on Soviet Jewish citizens. equating Zionism with Nazism and a desire to emigratefor whatever reasonswith treason. The decline in emigration and the worsening rights situations clearly are issues which must be addressed by Congress. Today. I would again like to bring to my colleagues attention the case of Vladimir Slepak. wellknown Soviet dissident who repeatedly has been denied permission to emigrate from the Soviet Union to join his family in Israel. Since the early 1970s. Vladimir Slepak has been a leading activist and spokesman for Soviet Jews trying to emigrate to Israel. He was among the first group of Soviet Jews to address petitions. letters. and appeals to the United Nations and. in June of 1976. along with other human rights activists. joined the Helsinki Watch Group. During the 1970s. when the Slepaks lived in the center of Moscow. Vladimir became the unofficial liaison between the refusenik community and the Western world. Vladimir Slepak. his wife Mariya and their two sons. Alexander and Leonid. first applied for permission to emigrate in April of 1970. Their applications were refused shortly thereafter because of Vladimirs classified work as head of a laboratory in the Moscow Scientific Institute of Television Research. Despite the fact that others in similar positions had been given exit visas after a 3- to 5year waiting period. the Slepaks subsequent applications were turned down because of "state interests." Moreover. upon application to emigrate. the Slepaks home was raided and searched repeatedly and the Slepaks themselves were harassed by Soviet authorities. In 1977 Alexander was given permission to emigrate and in 1979 Leonid also was allowed to emigrate. In the interim. however. Vladimir and Mariya Slepak were arrested for displaying a banner outside their Moscow apartment which simply read "Let us go to our son in Israel." Charged with "malicious hooliganism" and sentenced to internal exile. the Slepaks spent 41/2 years in Siberia.