<<No 36 : 31 May 1975>>

DEMONSTRATION

On 24 February 1975 a demonstration was staged on the steps of the Lenin Library by nine supporters of the movement for emigration to Israel (N, Tolchinsky, G. Toker, M. Liberman, L Beilin, I. Koltunov, L. Tsypin, A. Shcharansky, M. Nashpits and B. Tsitlyonok). Several of the demonstrators held banners saying “Freedom for Zionist prisoners!” and “Visas, not prisons!”

As soon as the banners were unfurled, men in civilian clothes without any outward indication that they were policemen or vigilantes suddenly appeared and tore the banners out of the hands of the demonstrators. Because nobody resisted, the demonstration lasted, its participants reckon, only a few minutes. Policemen arrived and took the detained men to sobering-up station No. 8. Tsypin and Shcharansky were soon released. Tolchinsky, Toker, Liberman, Beilin and Koltunov were sent to the Kiev district people’s court, where judges L. S. Sobolev and A. K. Bondarev sentenced four of them to 15 days’ and one to ten days’ imprisonment under the 15 February 1962 Decree, “for wilful disobedience to representatives of authority’.

Two of the demonstrators were arrested and sent to the KGB investigation prison (Lefortovo): Mark Nashpits (b. 1948), a dentist, sentenced in 1972 for refusing to serve in the army and since then unemployed; and Boris Tsitlyonok (b. 1944), a plumber, who had recently become unemployed. They were charged under Article 190-3 (RSFSR Criminal Code). The investigation was headed by investigator Gusev of the Moscow Procurator’s Office.

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TRIAL

On 31 March in the Babushkino people’s courthouse, an assizes session of the Moscow City Court took place.

The presiding judge was V. V. Bogdanov, the State Prosecutor was Prazdnikova. The lawyer E. A. Reznikova defended M. Nashpits; B. Tsitlyonok was defended by the lawyer L. M. Popov.

Although the court hearing was officially open to the public, none of the friends of the accused who had come to the courthouse were allowed into the courtroom. The only ones permitted to enter were Nashpits’s aunt, M. B. Zaslavskaya, and a representative of Tsitlyonok’s relatives, D. M. Samoilovich. Moreover, foreign journalists were barred from entering the courtroom. The reason given was, as usual, the shortage of seats: ‘People from the neighbouring houses have come, they want to attend the trial.’

The court heard nine witnesses. Seven of them confirmed that the defendants had been disturbing the peace. The two others seemed to confirm this too; however, one of them linked his evidence with Nashpits, the other with Tsitlyonok. In spite of this, the sentence was based on ‘the evidence of the witnesses’.

Neither Nashpits nor Tsitlyonok pleaded guilty. They not only denied that they had intended to disturb the peace, but insisted that, in picking a site for the demonstration, they had tried to ensure that no disturbance would be caused: on the day of the demonstration the library was closed and there was no one on the steps where the demonstrators were standing. The other participants in the demonstration requested the presiding judge to call them as witnesses. This was also requested by the two defence lawyers, but the court refused these requests.

The prosecutor, on the basis of Article 43 (RSFSR Criminal Code: “imposition of a milder penalty than that envisaged by the law”), asked for a sentence of five years’ exile for both defendants: cf. “Exile for Babitsky, Bogoraz and Litvinov”, CCE 4.1.

The defence lawyers asked for their clients to be acquitted because they had not intended to disturb the peace. They also pointed out that the wording of the indictment was identical with that on the basis of which five of the other demonstrators were sentenced to 10-15 days’ imprisonment.

Although the detailed section of the indictment in the case of Nashpits and Tsitlyonok stated that they had stood out among the demonstrators because of their specially vigorous activity, no factual evidence was cited to support this statement, apart from the fact that Nashpits and Tsitlyonok were holding banners (though they were not the only ones doing so), and that Nashpits had brushed aside the hand of a woman who had grabbed his banner, instead of handing it over to her.

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SENTENCE

They each received a sentence of five years’ exile. The sentenced men and their lawyers appealed against the sentence, but the appeal session of the RSFSR Supreme Court, which met on 25 April with Gavrilin presiding, did not change it.

Once again (apart from M. B. Zaslavskaya and D. M. Samoilovich), none of the relatives of the accused were allowed into the appeal court. A group of 30 American lawyers turned up at the courthouse. They asked to be allowed into the courtroom, but in vain.

Nashpits [¹] was sent into exile in east Siberia (Chita Region); Tsitlyonok [²] to central Siberia (Krasnoyarsk Region).

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NOTES

1. On Nashpits, see CCE 26.3 [2], CCE 37.13 [5], CCE 54.14 and CCE 55.8.
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2. On Tsitlyonok, see CCE 37.13 [5], CCE 54.14, CCE 54.20-1 and CCE 54.23-1.
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