<< No 33 : 10 December 1974 >>

7 ITEMS

[1]

Four Ukrainian women prisoners in Camp 3 of the Mordovian complex have sent letters to the USSR Procurator-General, R. Rudenko.

They are Stefaniya Shabatura (12 July 1973), Iryna Senik (5 December 1973), Nina Strokata (10 December 1973) and Nadiya Svetlichnaya [Ukr. Svitlychna] (10 December 1973). Their letters will be published in the first issue of the Archive of the Chronicle [¹].

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[2]

Press Statement

Alexander Ginzburg

‘The persecution of Alexander Isayevich SOLZHENITSYN has ended with his deportation. This was calculated to deprive those being persecuted for their ideas, for their refusal to lie, for the sacrificial love they feel for their people of moral support.

‘We have always had Solzhenitsyn’s example. It made it easier to behave like a human being: to defend one’s rights and not to lose one’s integrity, whether one was in an office, at a worksite, in prison or in a camp. To many people, however, Solzhenitsyn has given not just moral support. For many years, as I well know, political prisoners, their relatives and friends have turned to him for material support — and have received it.

‘Deporting Solzhenitsyn will not put an end to this aid.

“Political prisoners, their families and those who help them will be able to depend, as before, on Alexander Isayevich’s support. The honour of assisting him in carrying out this task has fallen to me.

‘This is the address to apply to:

‘Alexander Ilych Ginzburg, 5 Lesnoi Street, Tarusa, Kaluga Region.

‘It’s not difficult to foresee that new obstacles will arise on this road, especially at first. As always in our country, voices begin to be heard, not in praise of the powers that be, but as a bitter witness to the results of their power.

‘I share Solzhenitsyn’s conviction, however, that the righteousness of power must inevitably yield to the power of righteousness.

21 April 1974″

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[3]

LYUBARSKY

On 15 September Kronid Lyubarsky sent the following statement to the Praesidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, in connection with the unexpected pardoning of Silva Zalmanson and Simas Kudirka:

‘If the Soviet government has decided to curtail politically motivated repression, this ought to be welcomed in every way … If the political prisoners in the USSR were to be freed, and new politically motivated persecution to cease simultaneously, this would be greeted by Soviet society with understanding, and would significantly lessen the tensions which exist between the authorities and dissenting groups, which consist predominantly of the intelligentsia …

‘Obviously, such a course would signify the transition from a struggle using courts and repression to a genuine struggle of ideas. But this ought not to frighten a State which possesses a really strong Ideology. I call on the government of the USSR not to abandon the conciliatory initiative they have taken without developing it further.’

(The full text of this statement is to be published in Archive of the Chronicle No. 1.)

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[4]

SAKHAROV

On 20 November A. D. Sakharov sent a letter to the presidents of national psychiatric associations in nine countries:

“For almost three years Semyon Gluzman, a psychiatrist, has been imprisoned, because he dared to challenge a school of psychiatry which uses psychiatry for repressive ends …

“In the spring of 1972 Semyon Gluzman was arrested. The court sentenced him to seven years’ imprisonment on trumped-up charges of having distributed libellous fabrications about the Soviet system. It has now become known that this was the revenge taken by the authorities against Gluzman for his having written an anonymous but very penetrating article which was published in samizdat.

‘It is Gluzman who (in collaboration with others) wrote “An in Absentia Psychiatric Report on the Case of P.G. Grigorenko”, at that time incarcerated on the basis of a false diagnosis in the Chernyakhovsk Special Psychiatric Hospital. This report was an expose by a qualified person of one of the darkest and most carefully-disguised of crimes, and it was precisely for this reason that it drew the revenge of the authorities upon its author. Since his conviction Gluzman has been taking part, in his camp, in the political prisoners’ struggle for their rights and against the tyranny and cruelty of the administration and the ever-worsening conditions under which political prisoners are held . . .

“I am appealing to you, counting on your sympathetic understanding and on your sense of professional solidarity: Gluzman is a man of whom his colleagues can be proud. Today he needs your defence. Help him!”

The full text of the above letter will be published in issue 1 of the Archive of the Chronicle [²].

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[5]

Grigorenko’s son Andrei wrote a letter to Sakharov, asking him and the Human Rights Committee for their help on behalf of Mustafa Dzhemilev (CCE 32.9). On 20 November Sakharov replied in a letter headed ‘In support of Mustafa Dzhemilev’.

(Both letters are also to be published in the Archive of the Chronicle, No. 1).

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[6]

SAKHAROV

In June Andrei Sakharov addressed letters to Brezhnev and US President Nixon (CCE 32.22).

Having received no reply, he wrote again, on 20 November, to Leonid Brezhnev and to US President Gerald Ford. (This letter will be published in the Archive of the Chronicle, No. 1).

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[7]

Political prisoner Mykhaylo Andreyevich GORBAL (Ukr. Horbal) sent the following statement from Camp 35 of the Perm complex to the local procurator in Chusovoi:

[1] If a convict dies while serving a term of punishment, are his relatives entitled to his body? Which standing regulations make provision for this?

[2] If the standing regulations allow the administration of the place of imprisonment to refuse to hand over the body of the deceased to the relatives for burial, how long a period has to elapse before the body can be reinterred? Which standing regulations make provision for this?

[3] If a convict is buried in the place where he dies, are his relatives informed of the location of the grave? Which standing regulations make provision for this?

[4] Am I entitled to make arrangements for the disposal of my body in the case of my death? Which standing regulations make provision for this?”

Semyon Gluzman sent a similar set of questions. Two months later there had still been no reply.

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NOTES

1. The first issue of the Archive of the Chronicle is due to be published by Khronika Press (New York) in Russian in 1975.
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2. See full English text of Sakharov’s letter about Gluzman in CHR 1974 (No. 12).
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