Yet any religous believer in the Soviet Union faces a hard choice. He or she must either join an officially sanctioned religious body under KGB surveillance or go underground and risk penalties including terms in harsh labor camps. Faced with this choice. believers of many faiths have understandably sought to emigrate from the Soviet Union in order to practice their religion freely elsewhere. At this point they face another obstacle. The Soviet Union does not recognize the basic human right to emigrate and seek a new life in a new land. This cruel denial is especially poignant for Soviet Jews. who look to a homelandIsraeloutside the Soviet Union. Gorbachev has allowed the tiny trickle of departing Jews to increase in recent months. but the flow is still a small fraction of what it was a few year ago. and remains insignificant compared to the thousands who have taken the first step in trying to leave.
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emigrate