Jews are not permitted. for example. to study their own history. culture. and language. Jews are arrested for the crime of teaching Hebrew and for the dissemination of Jewish culture. Jews. who apply for exit visas to leave the Soviet Union. are arrested. charged with having committed "especially dangerous crimes against the state." put in prison for "leading a parasitic way of life." and are generally mistreated and their families harassed. It is incomprehensible to me how a modern nation claiming to be civilized can so mistreat its people. Moscow has signed the Helsinki accords. which require signatories to observe basic human rights. including the right of emigration. While Jewish emigration from the U.S.S.R. reached its peak in 1979 with the departure of 51.000 Soviet Jews. recent departures have dwindled to less than 1 percent of that number. There are reportedly 400.000 Jews out of a population of 1.7 million who still want to obtain exit visas from that country. It appears that Soviet authorities are determined to make emigration even more difficult for Soviet Jews. The Soviet Parliament enacted an emigration law last November. which ostensibly was intended to codify procedures. The law. however. actually narrows the basis for emigration. Under the old system. applicants for exist visas were required to obtain invitations from relatives abroad. including distant relatives. before being considered. Under the new law. only invitations from immediate relatives. such as a spouse or a parent. are accepted. Soviet authorities claim that the new law will permit more legitimate emigrants to leave the country. I believe it will do nothing of the sort. The new decree is another instance of Soviet duplicity and is an effort to harass Soviet Jews even further.
Keywords matched
emigration visas emigrants