Mr. Speaker. this afternoon I participated with many of my colleagues in the Third Annual Congressional Fast and Prayer Vigil for Soviet Jewry to pay tribute and lend support to the millions of Soviet Jews who are prohibited from emigrating from the Soviet Union by the Soviet Government. Each of us who participated in this moving appeal for human rights. was asked to adopt and pray for a refusenika Soviet Jew who has been refused permission by the Soviet Government to emigrate. Last year. and again this year. I participated in the vigil on behalf of Nadezhda Fradkova. a 38yearold computer analyst who has been denied permission to emigrate since 1978. when she first made her request. Before updating you on Nadezhdas efforts in the past year to gain religious freedom. let me give you some background about her continuing 8 year struggle against the Soviet Government. Having waited 5 years with no response from the Soviet Government to her 1978 request to emigrate. Nadezhda began a hunger strike on March 1. 1983. in protest of Soviet inaction. Her hunger strike continued for 6 weeks. during which time Soviet Jews throughout the world became aware of her efforts to gain religious freedom. These supporters petitioned the Soviet Government asking that Nadezhda be granted permission to emigrate. Soviet inaction in the matter continued until April 13. 1983. when Soviet police broke into Nadezhdas apartment and took her to a hospital where she was drugged and forcefed intravenously to end her hunger strike. Following her release from the hospital. Nadezhda again appealed to Soviet authorities for permission to emigrate. but her requests continued to be ignored. To protest again. she began another hunger strike on December 24. 1983. Soviet authorities intervened. as they had earlier in the year. and the KGB forcibly removed her from her apartment on January 3. 1984. and took her to the Leningrad Psychiatric Hospital No. 9 where she again was drugged and forcefed.
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