Speech #1000090942

Alexei Magarik to join their families in Israel and the United States? Both Alexei and Ida are now out of jail. but how did glasnost permit them to be arrested and sentenced in the first place? What of new applications. encouraged by the vast publicity surrounding glasnost and the recent emigration of small numbers of wellknown refuseniks? Well. there arent many to speak of. Not because people havent applied. but because the government will not accept their applications and therefore can say "We have no new applications." Is this glasnost at work? Yes. under Secretary Gorbachev and his policy of glasnost. a few friends for whose release we have been fighting have recently been informed that they will be permitted to emigrate. the Beguns. the Brailovskys. the Siedels. the Landsmans. and four others. Rumours flew for years that pianist Vladimir Feltsman and his family would be released. only to have it happen last month. after an 8 year wait. But these are barely a dozen people out of nearly half a million. Each visa should not be an event of international importance. Emigration of Soviet Jews should be a daily occurrence. By international treaties. signed by the Soviet Union. citizens of the Soviet Union are guaranteed the right of free travel. of cultural exchange. of family reunification. Jewish. and other. emigration from the Soviet Union should be treated as the right which it is. under the law of God and the laws of man. and not the miracle it has become. Why should there be a classless class called "refuseniks?" A class of people created and defined solely by the fact of their having applied to emigrate and been refused. thereby sentencing them to social and economic purgatory. Why should applicants have to wait at all to emigrate? Why. should anyone have to produce an invitation from an immediate relative outside the Soviet Union? If there is a country. such as Israel or the United States. willing to open our arms and make these people welcome. absorb them fully into the fabric of their own society. why should the Soviet Union prohibit this reunification. repatriation. or simple emigration? These are rights guaranteed by the Helsinki accords. and other international agreements to which the Soviet Union is a party. Glasnost working would mean complete freedom of movement. and compliance with agreements to which the Soviet Union is a party.