Speaker. I rise today to join my colleagues in paying tribute to the brave and indomitable spirit of Soviet Jews who haie long suffered under the Kremlins oppressive rule. Many of my colleagues here today have been active for years in the campaign to free those Soviet Jewish citizens wishing to emigrate from Russia. I know many share the deep sense of frustration and discouragement I feel when I hear the alarmingand increasingly frequentreports of hatred and violent attacks against Jewish refuseniks and activists. These days. the situation looks very dark indeed. Emigration levels of Soviet Jews have dropped dramaticallyfrom a high of 50.000 in the watershed year of 1979 to a low of 896 last year. The Kremlin has launched a propaganda campaign against its Jewish citizens that is frightening in its intensity. and which is abhorrent to all free men. On Soviet television. radio. and in the official Soviet newspapers. the authorities are linking Jews and Zionists as traitors in a plot to overthrow the Soviet Government.
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emigrate Emigration