Speech #990013239

I feel a special responsibility to Soviet Jewry. Since its creation by Congress in 1976. the Helsinki Commission has done all that it possibly can to pressure the Soviet Government to fulfill its human rights obligations under the Helsinki accords. For 9 long years we have chronicled the suffering of Soviet Jewrysuffering which has recently intensified. Physical violence against Jewish activists is on the increase and the Soviet antiSemitic propaganda campaign has become ominously more virulent. Emigration has plummeted to a trickle. Soviet Jews are denied their most basic cultural and religious rights. It was 8 years ago last week that Anatoly Shcharansky.