Marina. 26. and an 8yearold son. Marat. The Mesh family has been trying to leave the Soviet Union since 1977 when 20 of Yakov and Marinas relatives were allowed to emigrate. While Yakov was held back at the time. Soviet officials assured Yakovs mother. Rosa. that Yakov and his family would be allowed to join them shortly. But days turned into months and months have turned into years and the Soviets have been unrelenting in their refusal to consider issuing him and his family visas. The reason the Soviets give for not allowing him to emigrate is that he served in the Soviet military and there acquired a knowledge of military secrets. While it is true that Yakov did serve in the military. he was attached to the sports section as a boxerhardly a position from which one would expect exposure to essential military secrets. I believe that the real reasons for not allowing the Meshs to emigrate probably have more to do with their proJewish activities in the Soviet Union. They have participated in activities such as hunger strikes. and organizing seminars and meetings on Jewish culture. history and languages. Because of these activities the Meshs have been repeatedly harassed. intimidated. detained. and even arrested. In 1984 Yakov was arrested and while in prison he was abused causing a deterioration in his health. Yakov was released from prison in December On February 28. 1985 I went down to the Soviet Embassy to discuss this case with Soviet authorities and was accompanied by Senator METZENBAUM. We forcefully made the case for Yakov and his family. and requested that he and his family be issued emigrant visas as soon as possible. We never received any type of response to our meeting and there has been no appreciable progress on Yakovs case. I am sure that many of us have worked on or are working on difficult cases such as this. In fact because of the tremendous decline in emigration visas granted to Soviet Jews in recent years. almost all the cases are like this. Yet we can not give up. We must persevere. and take every possible step we can to provide these brave refuseniks with moral support and encouragement.
Keywords matched
emigrate emigration visas emigrant