Mr. Speaker. I am joining my colleagues in this years Call to Conscience Vigil to bring attention to the plight of Soviet Jews seeking freedom of religion and the right to emigrate from the Soviet Union. I share the concerns of all freedom loving people over the plight of Soviet Jews. I have expressed this concern by urging the Soviet authorities to adopt a more flexible policy on emigration and to live up to those basic international standards of human rights spelled out in the Helsinki accords and other documents to which the Soviet Union is a signatory. Time and again. in have written Soviet officials to urge reconsideration of individual refuseniks. from various cultural backgrounds. who were imprisoned for their religious or political convictions. The Modlin family is but one example of the campaign of antiSemitism that is becoming a standard occurrence in the Soviet Union. This family has been trying to emigrate to Israel since April 1982 so that they can be reunited with the wifes sister living in Jerusalem. Their application was initially refused in December 1982 on the grounds that they had no immediate family in Israel. They reapplied again in December 1983 but to no avail. that. and each subsequent application. has been refused. Beginning with the 1983 refusal the OVIR officials have assumed the position that the Modlin familys emigration is of no state interest. Michael and Ella Modlin are both engineers by profession and their son. Igor. is a student. Unfortunately since applying to emigrate Michael has been forced to procure a laborer position. In addition to this familys situation. I am further concerned about the continuing developments in the Soviet bloc that have lead to the increasing manifestations of officially sanctioned antiSemitism. persecution of both prominent and less wellknown refuseniks. and the continued downward trend in Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union. It is these types of persecutions that we can no longer fail to recognize. We must continue to raise human rights issues with the Soviets and with
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emigrate emigration