Letters and Statements, 1977-1978 (48.23-1)

<<No 48 : 14 March 1978>>

*

Mart Niklus, b. 1934

[1]

Mart Niklus

“To Professor Juri Saarma” (1 November 1977)

Professor Saarma is a psychiatrist and attended the International Congress of Psychiatrists in Honolulu as a member of the Soviet delegation.

With his article in the newspaper Kodurnaa and his talks on Estonian radio, writes Mart Niklus, Professor Saarma is misinforming the public when he asserts that dissenters are not incarcerated in Soviet psychiatric hospitals. Niklus refers in particular to his own experience in the psychiatric block of Mordovian Camp 3, and asks

“… Must there really be only one position? Are people whose words, actions and thoughts do not correspond to this position mentally sick — while people who think one way and act in another for the sake of their careers are healthy? …”

*

[2]

Boris Altshuler

“On the International Defence of Human Rights” (11 November 1977)

“… The events of the past months demonstrate a simple truth: the free exchange of information cannot for long be based on the personal initiative of a few enthusiasts who in doing so risk their life and freedom; what is needed are universal and automatically effective mechanisms for publicity, and, more broadly, there is a need for machinery for the international defence of human rights…

“I call for the drafting of a definite Moral Code for international professional activity: each international agreement should be accompanied by previously announced measures to ensure respect for humanitarian values and to provide an inspection mechanism.”

*

[3]

Gleb Yakunin, [Hierodeacon] Varsonofy Khaibulin and Victor Kapitanchuk

“Statement of the Christian Committee for the Defence of Believers’ Rights in the USSR”

(29 December 1977)

“On 16 December 1977, founder-members of the Christian Committee for the Defence of Believers’ Rights in the USSR, Father Gleb Yakunin and Victor Kapitanchuk, were summoned officially to the KGB. There they were formally told that their activities were ‘harmful to the interests of State security’ while the Committee’s documents were damaging the Soviet social and political system. If the members of the Christian Committee continued their activities, it was added, criminal proceedings would be instituted against them…

“We strongly protest against the classification of the activities of members of the Christian Committee as slanderous and harmful to the State security of the USSR …

“We are aware that the threat of forcibly putting an end to the activities of the Christian Committee may be carried out.

“For this reason, and in connection with the expressed desire of many believers to join the Christian Committee, the members of the Committee have made the following decision:

1. To accept member of the Russian Orthodox Church Vadim Shcheglov as a member of the Christian Committee.

2. To commission member of the Christian Committee V. Shcheglov, in the event of the arrest of the founder-members of the Committee, to announce the acceptance onto the Committee of those Christians who have been provisionally (in the event of the founder-members’ arrest) accepted by decision of the Committee.

3. The arrest of any member of the Christian Committee for the Defence of Believers’ Rights will not signify that he has left the Committee.

“30 December is the anniversary of the formation of the Christian Committee for the Defence of Believers’ Rights in the USSR. The numerous appeals to the Christian Committee by believers, and the experience accumulated by the Committee in doing its work confirm the need to act in defence of believers’ rights in the USSR.”

The authors call for the formation of an International Committee for the Defence of Believers’ Rights. They appeal in particular to Cardinal Josif Slipyi, Anatoly Levitin-Krasnov, Tatyana Khodorovich, E. Vagin, E. Bresenden and Arkady Polishchuk to participate in the formation of such a committee.

*

SAKHAROV (4-10)

Statements by Andrei Sakharov

For summaries and excerpts, see Seven Letters & Statements (48.23-2)

  • “Organizing Committee, Symposium on the Death Penalty” (19 Sept 1977)
  • “The Kontinent magazine is three years old” (1 November 1977)
  • (with Yelena Bonner) “To the President of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito” (25 Nov 1977)
  • “Speech for a meeting of the AFL-CIO” (28 November 1977)
  • “A Look at the Past Year” (14 December 1977)
  • Interview with the Italian magazine Grazia (31 January 1978)
  • “About the Belgrade Conference” (9 March 1978)

*

[11]

I.P. Sidorov

“Comrade Brezhnev, Secretary-General, CPSU Central Committee”

In 1942 a group of workers and employees of several Moscow factories were allotted plots of land near Moscow for collective horticulture. … under unbelievably difficult conditions … people turned worthless bits of land into blossoming gardens which were repeatedly awarded diplomas.

The gardeners successfully planted more than 100,000 fruit trees and currant bushes.

Three years ago, the gardens and garden huts were flattened by the Balashikhin forestry commission. The administration of the gardening cooperative was not warned; the demolition of the gardens began at 3 am. At present tall weeds are growing on the site of the former gardens.

The gardeners, the majority of whom are invalids and veterans of the Fatherland War or members of the families of the fallen, have repeatedly appealed to various official bodies for the preservation of the garden plots, however:

  • All solutions to this question end with the letters being sent to the Moscow regional soviet and there finding their BURIAL.
  • Or a mass of bureaucratic formalized replies and improbable answers result, which have no relation to the truth…

Thus, in the Moscow Region Party committee a document was read to the gardeners. It had been  compiled by the heads of various organizations and indicated that there had never, supposedly,  been any gardens at all on our plots of land …

One representative of the commission — Semyonova — expressed herself thus: “How could there be any question of a warning? THE FLATTENING OF THE GARDENS WAS IN ITSELF THE SIGNAL FOR THEIR LIQUIDATION…”

*

It is IMPOSSIBLE TO UNDERSTAND: where is there any respect, sensitivity or attentiveness to people who were born of the revolution and tempered in the dugouts of war and by the explosions of shells? WHERE IS THE STRICT OBSERVANCE OF THEIR LEGAL RIGHTS?…

Why have fair courts lost their function of defending the working class? Why do they do the bidding of the executive committees of town and regional soviets, defending their barbarous actions in destroying our native countryside and totally destroying property and buildings belonging to the working class by force of machinery and burning? WHO WILL REPLY?

*

DOCUMENTS 26-38 OF THE MOSCOW HELSINKI GROUP (48.23-3)

==================================