Speech #990077619

The joint resolution. with the preamble. reads as follows: S.J. REs. 166 Whereas on August 1. 1975. thirtyfive nations. including the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics signed the Final Act of Security and Cooperation in Europe (the Helsinki Final Act). and Whereas the Helsinki Final Act commits participating states to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms and confirms the right of the individual in each participating state to know and act upon his rights and duties in this field. and Whereas. on May 12. 1976. Doctor Yury Orlov and his colleagues announced the formation of the Helsinki Watch Group and more than one hundred people openly became members of the group and its affiliates. and Whereas today. fiftyone Helsinki Watch members are incarcerated in prisons. labor camps. psychiatric hospitals. or are serving terms of exile. and Whereas three Helsinki Watch members have died after years of mistreatment in Soviet labor camps and twenty others have been released after serving sentences but live under the constant threat of resentencing or new arrest. and Whereas eighteen Helsinki Watch members have emigrated to the West because of the threat of imprisonment in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. and Whereas Doctor Yury Orlov. a sixtyyearold physicist and founder the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group was arrested in February 1977 and sentenced to seven years in a strict regime labor camp and five years of internal exile. and Whereas Yury Orlov now lives in complete isolation in a remote part of Siberia in a workers dormitory where he is abused and persecuted by local officials. where food is scarce. and proper medical care unavailable. and Whereas Yury Orlov is in poor health. aggravated by years of harsh prison regimen. and suffers from kidney disease. the after effects of a skull injury. and other chronic illnesses. and Whereas Doctory Yury Orlov has been denied employment in his scientific field. prevented from communicating with scientific colleagues abroad. and prohibited from receiving mail and Journals: Now. therefore. be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. That the United States Senate expresses its deepest concern about Doctor Yury Orlov and calls upon the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to release him from exile and allow him to emigrate with his wife to the West. and urges the President of the United States to instruct the Secretary of State to raise the case of Doctor Yury Orlov publicly and privately with the Soviet flovernment. including the August 1 meeting in Helsinki. Finland commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act. at the 1988 session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. and at the November meeting in Geneva between President Reagan and Chairman Gorbachev.