The Right to Leave, Nov 1979 (54.20-1)

<<No 54 : 15 November 1979>>

20-1. GENERAL. Jews (7-18)
20.2. Germans (19-24); Pentecostalists (25-33): Boris Yevdokimov’s death. Those Who Have Left (35-37)

[1]

The “Action Committee to Fight for the Right of Free Departure from the USSR” (CCE 53.25-1) produced three bulletins before September 1979. It is now being replaced by a “Public Group for the Right to Emigrate”. Its members are: Ludmila Agapova, Ivan Lupachev, Mark Novikov, Vyacheslav Repnikov and Vladimir Shepelev.

On 4 November 1979, the group issued a document entitled “Our Position Regarding Emigration”, which sets out their proposals for legal guarantees on the right to emigrate. The document is available for signatures until the end of the year.

[2]

In October 1979, 12 Muscovites wishing to emigrate sent a statement to the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet. They demanded that a letter from parents certifying that there are no material obligations affecting their attitude towards the emigration of their children be excluded from the list of documents required by the Department of Visas & Registration (OVIR).

The consent or lack of consent of parents to their mature children’s intention to emigrate to Israel, the authors assert, cannot have any legal force. It should not figure in official documents, since no law currently in force in the USSR demands their opinion on where their children choose to live.

Further on, the authors write:

“According to Article 20 of the Basic Principles of Legislation in the USSR … and also the relevant Articles concerning marriage and the family in the Codes of the Union Republics, mature children are obliged to render material help to their parents when they are no longer able to work and are in need.

“But this obligation cannot be abjured simply by signing a certificate … In the same way the document referred to above does not create, does not change and does not cancel anyone’s personal or material obligations. Consequently, to demand that it be submitted is by its very essence illegal … The obligation of one person to pay something (whether it is a debt or alimony) must be proved by the person who claims the payment.“

The statement also refers to illegal actions by OVIR officials, notaries and the courts.

In accordance with a Decree of the USSR Supreme Soviet Presidium (dated 12 April 1968), “On the Procedure for Examining Proposals, Statements and Complaints Submitted by Citizens”, OVIR officials are obliged personally to demand necessary documents to which private persons have been refused access.

OVIR officials refuse to make the appropriate enquiries, however. In accordance with the law “On State Notaries”, notary offices are obliged to pass on statements containing, for example, enquiries about the presence or absence of material claims of parents towards their children.

However, the notaries refer to a secret instruction and refuse to accept such statements, and the courts do nothing about complaints against the notary offices.

[3]

OLGA MATUSEVICH

On 18 April Olga Matusevich (Geiko in previous issues [¹]) received an invitation to take up permanent residence in the USA.

The following day she was detained as she attempted to enter the US Consulate in Kiev. At the police station she was told that if she was seen in the vicinity of the Consulate again she would be arrested and sentenced — for robbery or, for example, for prostitution. KGB officials also threatened her parents.

After she had addressed a complaint to Andropov, the threats to her parents ceased; but she herself was not left alone. In mid-July she was beaten up near her home by two unknown men; a month and a half later the same two men came to see her at work and ‘explained’ in gestures that they would first rape and then kill her.

Her husband Nikolai Matusevich, who is in a camp, was not allowed to sign Olga’s permission to emigrate, since, he was told, “official documents are not entrusted to private persons”.

By complaining to the Main Administration for Corrective Labour Institutions, to the USSR Procurator-General and to Brezhnev, Olga Matusevich managed to obtain a reply from the camp administration. It stated that her husband’s consent would be transmitted to OVIR if its officials requested it.

On 6 September 1979, Lysenko, an inspector at the district OVIR office, refused to accept her documents, saying that until Olga got a divorce they would not even talk to her. In September she also saw Siforov, Head of the Kiev City OVIR, who told her that he had no right to separate a man and wife. Nevertheless, he promised to seek advice and to invite Olga to come and see him in three days.

After waiting three weeks, Olga Matusevich sent a complaint to Brezhnev, enclosing all the documents required by OVIR. She asks for permission to leave the USSR without having to divorce her husband. If permission is refused, Matusevich states, she will be forced to renounce her Soviet citizenship and to ask the US government for political asylum.

[4]

SERGEI BELOV

On 21 September Sergei Belov (CCE 51.16 [10]) submitted a statement to the “Action Committee to Fight for the Right of Free Departure”, asking for help in obtaining an invitation to take up permanent residence in the USA.

BIOGRAPHY

S. P. Belov (b. 1937) graduated from the All-Union Institute for Law by correspondence in 1972.

In 1973-1975 he worked as an investigator in the Privolzhsk district police department (Ivanovo Region). He was dismissed from his job and has since worked as a loader and despatching clerk in a catering organization.

In the summer of 1976 he wrote a work entitled The Bio-sociology of Heredity (Polygenesis) in which he examined the reasons for the progressive increase in the USSR in the number of people suffering from serious congenital mental deficiencies. He sent the manuscript to Nauka publishers; six months after it had been returned, he sent it to the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet. Soon afterwards, officials of the Privolzhsk police brought charges of ‘petty hooliganism’ against him.

On 5 October 1976 he was sentenced to a month of compulsory labour. In January 1977 Belov sent his work to the USSR Committee for Inventions & Discoveries. On 25 August 1977, he was summoned to the Ivanovo Regional Psycho-neurological Clinic, where it was proposed that he should be admitted to a psychiatric hospital for examination. He categorically refused. He was threatened that if he continued writing he would be put in a psychiatric hospital by force.

On 1 November 1977 Belov sent a telegram to Academician Sakharov (copied to Brezhnev) stating that he was joining the appeal to the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet for an amnesty for prisoners of conscience to mark the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution. He handed in another telegram, addressed to Alexander Ginzburg at Lefortovo Prison, in which he offered his services as a defence lawyer. On 2 November 1977 Belov was forcibly interned in the ‘Bogorodskoye’ regional psycho-neurological Hospital, where he was detained until 10 December.

After his release he began insistently trying to obtain permission to emigrate.

To this effect, he sent several telegrams to Brezhnev and Shcholokov, USSR Minister of Internal Affairs, and went in person to the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet and to the reception office of the USSR MVD. At the MVD he was advised to approach the relevant embassy and request an invitation.

On 3 September 1978 Belov posted a statement to the US Embassy containing a request for political asylum and for an invitation to take up permanent residence in the USA. A month later he demanded a notification of delivery from the postal authorities and wrote a complaint.

On 25 October 1978 Belov was taken, under guard and in handcuffs, to the Bogorodskoye Hospital, from he was discharged on 30 January 1979. At home he found a note from the post-office stating that his letter to the US Embassy had been lost.

On 5 February 1979, he wrote to the US Embassy for the second time. At the end of March the letter was returned to him. On 30 March Belov wrote to the US Embassy for a third time. He has still not received notification of delivery, although he has made several enquiries.

On 17 July 1979, Sergei Belov was again seized and taken to Bogorodskoye Hospital. He was released on 13 August.

[5]

On 30 September Justas Gimbutas (CCE 53.19-2) was detained outside the American Embassy, where he was going to clear up several questions connected with adopting American citizenship.

He was taken to Police Station 11. He was then examined by a psychiatrist who particularly asked him whether he was actively anti-Soviet. The conclusion was: ‘normal’.

The following day Gimbutas was advised to “come to his senses” and sent home to the city of Klaipeda (Lithuanian SSR).

[6]

PART

On 5 November the family of the well-known Estonian composer Arvo Pärt applied for permission to emigrate to Israel, where the parents of Nora Pärt, Arvo’s wife, live.

On 15 November Pärt was expelled from the Union of Composers of the Estonian SSR. This measure was apparently taken so swiftly because Pärt had been chosen as Estonian delegate to the Congress of Soviet Composers, which was to take place in Moscow on 20 November. A concert scheduled for 25 November was to include some of Pärt’s works, but they were not played.

Pärt was constantly refused visas for foreign travel, for which he applied in order to be present at Western performances of his works. The exception was his trip to London in August of this year for the premiere of his Cantata in Memory of Benjamin Britten. The first performance of the Cantata was to have taken place in December 1978. but it was postponed because Pärt was refused permission to travel on that occasion.

*

JEWS (7-18)

[7]

In November 1978 Ya. Groberman, A. Milner and A. Feldman, all citizens of the town of Beltsy (Moldavia) were sitting in a cafe when they were attacked by seven hooligans.

A fight was provoked. Feldman, who already had a visa for Israel, and Milner (who was waiting for permission) were arrested. Their trial took place in April 1979. Groberman, who had been trying to leave the USSR since 1973, was present as a witness. He was arrested in the courtroom and, like Milner and Feldman, charged with ‘malicious hooliganism’. Groberman and Feldman were sentenced to four years’ imprisonment each, and Milner to six years.

[8]

On his return to Moscow (CCE 54.14) Mark Nashpits was refused a residence permit, although his certificate of release stated that he was bound for Moscow. OVIR refused to accept Nashpits’ documents on the grounds that he did not have a residence permit (a less official, but more significant reason may be that Nashpits is the son of a ‘non-returner’).

Nashpits’s co-defendant Boris Tsitlyonok handed in his documents at OVIR before obtaining a residence permit. He left at the beginning of November (without having had a residence permit) [addition CCE 55.12].

[9]

On 4 August 1979, Grigory Goldstein (CCE 53.19-2) was refused permission to emigrate.

[10]

KNOKH

On 10 August 1979, Vladimir Knokh from Leningrad (CCE 47.3-3), who has been trying to emigrate since 1974, sent a statement to the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet. He is being refused permission to leave because of work he did ten years ago.

Knokh writes that he is being discriminated against because he is a Jew and, furthermore, one who wants to leave the USSR. In 1976 he was unable to find any work for eight months and was threatened with prosecution for parasitism. Finally he was given a low-paid, unskilled job (Knokh is an engineer).

In 1979 Knokh completed a programming course. However, he was also turned down for several computing jobs, despite the fact that he had a recommendation from the district soviet executive committee. E.C. Rubtsova, head of the computing centre at the Leningrad Machine Tool Construction Association, said over the phone that she needed qualified programmers; when he saw her she told Knokh there were no vacancies and she could not foresee any.

Knokh wrote to the Leningrad Region Party Committee requesting help in finding a job in his speciality.

Kokov, an official of the Kalinin district Party committee, invited Knokh to come and see him; he explained to Knokh that as he had “betrayed the Motherland”, i.e., applied for permission to emigrate to Israel, he would not be able to work as an engineer. When Knokh referred to his right, as a citizen of the USSR, to work, Kokov replied that Knokh was not a citizen, but a subject of the USSR. In this connection Knokh asked the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet to deprive him of his citizenship:

“not only de facto but also formally, in accordance with the law ‘On Citizenship’ (1 July 1979).“

[11]

YELISTRATOV

KHABAROVSK. On 6 August 1979, Victor Yelistratov [²] was detained and searched at Khabarovsk Airport (Soviet Far East).

One of the policemen who detained him tried to stage a struggle, as though Yelistratov was resisting, and showed his shoulder-strap, which had been torn off in advance, to those who had gathered round. Yelistratov was taken to an office where a Procurator was waiting for him.

To Yelistratov’s protests about the staged incidents the Procurator replied: “And supposing witnesses are found who say that you resisted?” In the search warrant presented to Yelistratov there was no indication of what case the search was being conducted in connection with.

On 9 August a search of Yelistratov’s flat was carried out. Yelistratov wrote a complaint to the Khabarovsk City Procurator about the incident at the airport. On 11 August 40 people signed a statement addressed to the USSR Procurator-General, demanding an end to the persecution of Yelistratov.

LENINGRAD. Late on the evening of 20 September 1979, when the guests were dispersing after the wedding of refuseniks Yuly and Yelena Krolin, a passer-by struck Viktor Yelistratov shouting: “What are you pushing for?”

When Yelistratov and some friends were walking away from a bus-stop because the bus had not arrived, the same passer-by approached him again; he was ‘covered’ by several men and women who had previously been sitting in a Volga car parked outside the Karolins’ house. At that time they had been carrying on conversations on the car radio. Yelistratov was struck a few times by his attacker and then he and his friends went back to the Volga. All this took place about 300 metres from a police station.

Leningrad refuseniks sent a statement to the Procurator demanding that charges be brought against the organizers and perpetrators of the attack on Yelistratov .

[12]

In September a search was carried out in the Odessa flat rented by Moscow refusenik G. Khasin (CCE 48.2), who was on holiday.

Books in modern Hebrew and a tape-recorder were confiscated. Khasin was fined for living in Odessa without a residence permit, imprisoned for 10 days, then taken back to Moscow.

KIEV REFUSENIKS

[13]

In September 1979, Kiev refusenik Yelena Oleinik (CCE 53.25-2) and her husband Ivan were on holiday in Yalta. On 18 September they noticed that they were being followed.

On 19 September 1979, ten days before the anniversary of the first mass execution at Baby Yar, the following incident took place. As they were returning from the beach an unknown woman ran towards them, threw a jar of tomato sauce at their feet and began to shout for help. A police car immediately appeared and all three were taken to the police station. One of the police-officers dictated the ‘plaintiff’s’ testimony to her.

Yelena was detained and sentenced the following day to 15 days’ imprisonment. She declared a hunger-strike in the courtroom. (The warders at the special detention centre where she served her sentence refused to accept a food parcel from Ivan Oleinik, saying that his wife was not eating in any case.)

On 24 September a group of women refuseniks appealed to Jewish women’s organizations in the West to join them in their protest. On 25 September they handed in a statement at the reception office of the CPSU Central Committee, demanding the immediate release of Yelena Oleinik. They stated that they would stage a two-day hunger-strike to mark their solidarity with Oleinik.

These two statements were signed by 33 women refuseniks from Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Odessa and Tbilisi.

[14]

KISLIK

In May 1979, the Kiev refusenik Vladimir Kislik [³] was taken to KGB headquarters, where he had an interview with a deputy head.

Criminal charges had been prepared against him, he was told, and it depended entirely on the KGB as to whether they would be taken further. Kislik was presented with a written warning that criminal charges were being brought against him for having published a scientific article in a foreign journal (CCE 47.8-4) and for organizing collective actions by refuseniks. Kislik refused to sign the warning.

On 30 June Evening Kiev published an article about Kislik, which contained threats against him.

On the evening of 20 August 1979, Kislik was expecting guests, members of the Israeli delegation to the Political Science Congress. KGB officials arrived at his home and asked him to come with them for questioning. He refused and was taken to the KGB office in his shorts and T-shirt.

Investigator Petrov questioned him as to how his article had been transmitted abroad. Kislik had given an explanation in 1977, he said, and could add nothing more. He was given a certificate absenting him from work the following day but he did not turn up for interrogation. On 25 August, under threat of being taken there by force, Kislik went for questioning. He was asked the same questions and he wrote a statement addressed to the KGB Head informing him that he had nothing to add to the testimony he had given in 1977.

From 20 August to mid-September Kislik was constantly followed.

On 21 September a search was carried out in Kislik’s flat from 9 am to 10.30 pm. Investigator Ignatiev refused to explain which case the search was connected with (only its number was mentioned in the protocol), who the defendant was, or what they were looking for.

Besides the investigator and the witnesses, two other persons, who refused to show any identification, were present during the search. (One of them had followed Kislik in August andSeptember.) These two carried out the search. All books in modern Hebrew (grammars, dictionaries, religious literature) and in English were confiscated, also reprints of articles, private correspondence and correspondence with official bodies concerning work and emigration.

Even items belonging to Kislik and his father that they used in prayer (beads, skull-caps) were taken.

During the interrogation on 24 September, Ignatiev informed Kislik that proceedings with regard to violation of author’s rights had been instigated, in which Kislik would be a witness and then the defendant. On 29 September he was again interrogated.

[15]

On 12 October in Kiev the following activists of the emigration movement were sentenced to 15 days’ imprisonment for refusing to leave the reception area of the Ukrainian Communist Party Central Committee: S. Rotshtein, V. Rotshtein, Yelena Oleinik, N. Naumova, Chernyak, A. Rozenman, A. Brodskaya, I. Chernyavskaya, S. Chernyavsky, Ye. Gelfeld, L. Sisko, A. Sukholutsky.

On 14 October a telegram of protest (40 signatures) was sent to Shcherbitsky, 1st Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party.

[16]

KUSHNIRENKO

On 11 January 1979, I. A. Kushnirenko (b. 1953) from Kiev applied to OVIR for permission to emigrate to Israel with his wife and child.

In 1970 and 1975 medical commissions at the Military Registration Office had declared Kushnirenko unfit for military service in peacetime, because he still suffered from the effects of a former serious head injury and his name had been removed from the call-up list. Kushnirenko’s father, who had abandoned his family 19 years before, wrote to the Minister of Defence claiming that Kushnirenko was faking his head injury and that he was trying to emigrate to Israel in order to evade military service.

After Kushnirenko submitted his application to emigrate, he was summoned to the Military Registration Office and sent for a medical examination: he was sent as an in-patient to the district hospital, then to the psycho-neurological clinic. At each place it was concluded that there was no question of drafting him into the Army. He was next sent for examination to Military Hospital No. 408, where he was pronounced fit for guard duty and told that he was being saved from going to Israel, for which he ought to be grateful.

Kushnirenko’s summons to the district Military Registration Office was issued for 4 June, the last day for conscription. On 3 June he fell ill and on 4 June he was given a sick leave certificate. On the same day, however, he was detained at the clinic by police and officials from the Registration Office, where he was taken and issued with travel papers for the journey to his military unit.

Kushnirenko refused to go and on 19 June the Registration Office referred the matter to the Procuracy. The investigators working on criminal charges against him, established that the sick-leave certificate of 4 June was genuine and a forensic medical commission decided that he was suffering from the disease which had provided the basis for his exemption from military service. The case was closed “for lack of concrete evidence of a crime”.

On 17 September 1979, Kushnirenko’s family received permission to emigrate. However, the Registration Office refused to remove Kushnirenko’s name from the list of those eligible for military service and managed to obtain a review of the charges against him, which went on for a month.

The verdict was that the case had been closed legally.

[17]

SHAIN

On 11 June Boris M. Shain [⁴], an associate professor at Saratov University, applied for permission to emigrate to Israel.

On 1 August, when Shain was on holiday, the University Rector ordered that a commission be formed to examine Shain’s professional competence. On 27 August the commission concluded that Shain was unsuited to his present position. It was suggested that he resign “of his own free will”. Shain refused.

On 29 August he was summoned to a meeting of the Faculty Appointments Commission, where he was accused of intending to emigrate to Israel — which was contrary to communist morality — and refusing to do community work. The commission also concluded that Shain could no longer occupy the post of assistant professor in the Geometry Faculty of Saratov University.

Shain protested against the decision of the Appointments Commission in statements to the Department of Higher Education Establishments of the CPSU Central Committee:

“The persecution of citizens who express the wish to be united with families living abroad is an obvious, undisguised violation of the Helsinki Final Act, and the University officials must be aware that by acting in this way they accept responsibility for the possible consequences.

“I ask you to exercise your wisdom and, guided by the voice of reason and not emotion, to stop — while there is still time — the unworthy anti-Semitic persecution which has developed around me at the University of Saratov …“

At the end of October Shain received permission to emigrate.

[18]

GODYAK

V. A. Godyak, senior research officer at the Electronics Department of the Physics Faculty (Moscow University), asked in September for a reference from work to present to OVIR.

In response, the Dean of the Faculty, Professor V. S. Fursov, appointed a commission to check the safety measures used by the group headed by Godyak. As a result Godyak was transferred to work in the library. Soon afterwards he was relieved of laboratory work with PhD candidates, professional colleagues and students, and of heading his group.

Three closed Party meetings (each lasting several hours) took place in the department. The following decisions, in particular, were taken:

1) to boycott Godyak;
2) not to leave him alone in the laboratory;
3) not to permit anti-Semitic excesses.

Staff and graduate students of the department who were seen talking to Godyak were summoned for interviews with the Party organizer.

On 30 October 1979, there was a faculty trade union meeting. Godyak was expelled for violating the political clause of the union statute, as shown by his anti-civic and anti-social action (contrary to the ideology of a Soviet scientist) of applying to emigrate to Israel …

Of the 63 members present at the meeting, one voted against the resolution and three abstained.

The latter were summoned to the union office for a ‘going over’ and one of the PhD students had the defence of his thesis postponed. The woman staff member who voted against Godyak’s expulsion from the union is constantly summoned for interviews with the union committee, and her husband, who also works at the Physics Faculty, has had the defence of his thesis postponed.

Godyak was given a work reference only after he had written many times to the Rector of Moscow University and to the Lenin district Party committee.

The Right to Leave, Nov 1979 (54.20-2), Pt 2

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