Speaker. I am pleased to participate in todays special order calling attention to the plight of Soviet Jews. and I commend the gentleman from New York and the gentleman from Florida for organizing this effort to demonstrate congressional concern. Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union has declined precipitously in recent years. from a high of 51.320 in 1979 to a low of 1.218 last year. This is a discouraging trend which. I suspect. reflects the continuing deteriorating of relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. I am particularly discouraged by recent reports of widespread crackdowns by Soviet authorities on the efforts of Soviet Jews to engage in their religious and cultural activities. as well as their efforts to emigrate from the Soviet Union to Israel. Sadly. we in Congress have little direct leverage with which to persuade the Soviet leadership to abandon its campaign of harassment and intimidation. What we can do is to call attention to the cases of individual refuseniks in the hope that international attention will help ameliorate the treatment they are receiving. As part of this years Washington visits by members of the Student Coalition for Soviet Jewry. I was asked by one of my constituents to call attention to the plight of Vladimir Samuilovich Kislik. a refusenik from Kiev in the Ukraine. Vladimir Kislik first applied for permission to emigrate from the Soviet Union in December 1973. Although he is. by training. a metallurgical engineer. he has been forced since 1974 to engage in menial occupations unrelated to his training. Mr. Kislik has been beaten. harassed. and threatened by the KGB for his efforts to emigrate. In 1976 his telephone was disconnected after he spoke with his son Maxim. who had emigrated to Israel. In 1980. Vladimir Kislik was warned that he would face a prison sentence if he did not stop meeting with Western visitors and other refuseniks.
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emigrate emigration emigrated