After 1980. arrests of Soviet dissidents tripled to nearly 240 per year. criminal charges against them grew vaguer and sentences grew longer. repressive new laws were passed. Conditions of imprisonment for about 10.000 Soviet political prisoners worsened. In January 1980. Nobel Laureate Andrei Sakharov was summarily banished to Gorky. Today. the Sakahrovs have disappeared. The Kremlin also tried to cut the Soviet people off from the West. Jewish. German. and Armenian annual emigration rates fell to under 1.000 per group. Laws were passed to discourage contacts with foreigners. Soviet jamming of Western radio broadcasts was resumed in the wake of Polish Solidarity.
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emigration