The trials of these criminals are a cruel farce. Proper counsel is rarely. if ever. provided and verdicts are often delivered within a matter of minutes. Sentences of up to 13 years of hard labor and exile are handed down without the benefit of anything even remotely resembling a fair trialin open defiance of the intent of the Helsinki accords "to respect the right of national minorities before the law" and to "afford them the full opportunity for the actual enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms." Perhaps even more troubling than these outrageous abuses of basic human rights is the inability of Soviet Jews to escape their living nightmare through emigration. Despite the fact than some 260.000 Jews were permitted to leave the Soviet Union over the past 10 years. emigration has been virtually halted. From an alltime high of 51.320 in 1979. the number of Jews permitted to leave the U.S.S.R. fell to Just 1.315 in 1983a decrease of 97 percent. This year. the figures are even more dismal: only 83 Jews emigrated in August. bringing the total number of Jewish citizens who have left the Soviet Union to only 652. At this rate. Soviet Jewish emigration will not even reach last years appallingly low total. The scheduling of todays special order is especially fortuitous in light of President Reagana meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko in New York later this week. with this meeting in mind. a number of my colleagues and I wrote to President Reagan on September 11 urging him to discuss with Mr. Gromyko his Governments treatment of Jews in the Soviet Union.
Keywords matched
emigration emigrated