Speech #980177347

Speaker. in March 1981. the world was shocked to learn that Mart Niklus countryman and fellow human rights activist Dr. Yuri Kukk died during a hunger strike following his conviction on trumpedup "slander" charges. I trust that the Soviet Government would not wish to see such a tragedy repeated. In 1982. House Concurrent Resolution 218 called upon the Soviet Government to honor its commitments under the Helsinki Accords by allowing Mart Niklus to emigrate to Sweden to join one of his relatives in Sweden. I call upon the Soviet Government to heed this humanitarian plea. and thereby divest itself of the opprobrium that it has acquired in its treatment of political prisoner Mart Niklus.o