Mr. Speaker. I hope and pray that Anatoly Shcharanskys release is the beginning of a more liberal policy of Jewish emigration by the Soviet Union. But even as Natan Shcharansky walks the streets of Jerusalema free manwe must not forget the 350.000 Jews who are still held captive in the Soviet Union. nearly all of vhom have committed no crime. yet who are still denied the right to emigratefurther evidence of the utter defiance of the three major human rights agreements of which the Soviet Union is a cosignatore: The U.N. Declaration of Rights (1948). the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (1966) and Basket III of the Helsinki Final Act (1975). Since 1979. when 51.000 Jews were allowed to emigrate. the flow of Soviet Jews has slowed to a tricklelast year. only 1.140 Jews left the Soviet Union. Those who are forced to remain suffer the inhumane treatment of the Soviet authorities: an absence of the freedom of religion. discriminatory entrance exams. illegal searching of homes. false accusations of crimes. and forced institutionalization in mental hospitals. The release of Anatoly Shcharansky and the recently revealed smuggled letters of Andrei Sakharov have allowed a brief illumination of the shroud of secrecy that is the Soviet Gulag.
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