Speech #990176329

I would like to call attention to one womans plight. It is the case of Nadezhda Fradkova. Nadezhda. who is now 39. first applied for permission to emigrate to Israel in 1978. The reasons given for her denial reveal the lack of good faith on the part of the Soviet authorities. They maintained that she could not be allowed to emigrate because her father had access to State secrets. In reality. her parents divorced when she was an infant. and Nadezha has never met her father. To protest the continued denial- of her right to emigrate. Nadezhda resorted to the only weapon at her disposal. the hunger strike. She began several during 1983 and 1984.