country, and the Soviets will be reminded that congressional interest in this case of human rights violations is mounting. The Siberian Seven's story can be traced back to 1962 when the Vashchenkos and Chmykalovs decided to chart their lives in a new direction-out of persecution in the Soviet Union and into the freedom of the United States. Explicitly following the Soviet law, the families pursued their emigration course. Years and years of repeated applications and journeys to emigration offices did not win the cherished exit visas, rather they were countered with steppedup harassment and brutality. Family members have been subjected to constant persecution, harassment, deprivation, and confinement in psychiatric hospitals, labor camps, and state "re-education" schools. Sixteen years later, in 1978, eight members of the two families traveled to the American Embassy in Moscow at the invitation of Embassy officials. They went seeking emigration advice, not asylum. But because a young boy in their party was dragged away and severely beaten by Soviet guards before ever entering the Embassy, the others decided they must remain there for their own safety. The Soviets have refused to allow the Vashchenkos and Chmykhalovs to emigrate, insisting they must first return to their hometown, Chernogorsk, and file yet another series of applications. To protest Soviet refusal to allow them to emigrate, Lidia and Augustina Vashchenko went on a hunger strike in late December 1981. Lidia grew so weak that she was removed to Moscow's Botkin Hospital. Upon her recovery, Lidia did indeed return to Chernogorsk and joined her brothers and sisters in filing again countless applications and paying numerous processing fees. Lidia met the Soviets' demand by returning to Chernogorsk, but they have not fulfilled their commitment. We had not expected that a nation which has not honored commitments made in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Helsinki Final Act would honor a commitment to an individual, but we had hoped it might. Since Lidia's return to Chernogorsk, all hopes for an immediate resolution to this problem have been stymied by the Soviets. After several months of offering them empty promises and false information, the Soviets officially denied them their exit visas. Their situation grows bleaker daily; they have been subjected to increasing police harassment and brutality, the family members are not allowed to work, and they have been reduced to picking over garbage to feed themselves. On June 27 of this year, 4 years after the seven entered the embassy, two Vashchenkos began another hunger strike. A few days later, two more family members joined them. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, the Vashchenkos and Chmykhalovs are paying dearly for holding steadfastly to their desire to live, work, and pray freely in a nation that respects human rights. They have expended every ounce of energy to that end and we ought to stand stalwartly by their side. At what may be the nadir of a tortuous emigration journey, it is important that we remain committed to helping them in every possible say. By focusing our attention on cases of human rights violations like this one, we advance the cause of religious freedom everywhere. Again I want to thank the subcommittee and commend the subcommittee for the work that it is doing. Mr. BONKER. Thank you, Senator. I want to thank you for your commitment to this issue and being here with us today. Mr. Frank, do you think you can complete your statement? Mr. BONKER. For the benefit of the audience, we have a scheduled vote on the House floor and we will recess for approximately 10 minutes and the subcommittee will reconvene promptly at 5 after 3. [Recess.] Mr. BONKER. The subcommittee will reconvene and we will now hear from our colleague from Massachusetts, Barney Frank. STATEMENT OF HON. BARNEY FRANK, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS Mr. FRANK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to you and the members of this subcommittee, I again want to express my thanks for the leadership you have taken in this regard. I have a statement I will submit for the record. Let me ask you, Mr. Chairman-you quoted in your statement from the opening letter we got from the Vashchenko family-is that whole letter in the record? Mr. BONKER. Not the entire thing. Mr. FRANK. I would like to offer the whole letter for the record if I could. Mr. BONKER. That is appropriate. Without objection, it is so ordered. [The letter follows:] OPEN LETTER TO PEOPLE IN THE WEST JUNE 10, 1982. On the occasion of another anniversary, the fourth one, of our stay in the American Embassy in Moscow, please allow me, in the name of my whole family, to thank all those in the West, both individuals and Governments, who have been trying to get permission for us to leave this country. We are especially grateful to those of the American government who introduced and support Resolution 100 in the House of Representatives and Bill 312 in Senate that would grant us residence here and allow us to apply for American citizenship 5 years from the date we first came to the Embassy. We consider the Resolution and the Bill as an assurance of the American government that they accept my family for permanent residence in their country which the Soviets wanted us to have when they sent us to the Embassy in 1975. We thank God and those who early this year made, through the article in Parade magazine, our story and desire to leave the Soviet Union widely known, those readers of Parade who sent letters of protest to the Soviet and American governments on our behalf, and those who sent telegrams, letters and cards to us during the time of crisis when my sister, Lida, and my mother, Augustina, went on a hunger strike, and those who helped us during Lida's hospitalization last January. Many of you have been tirelessly and persistently supporting us in the right of emigration which my family has been trying to obtain for the past 22 years. We have made many different attempts to get permission from the Soviet government to leave the USSR but the Soviets continue to keep us here and tell the children in Chernogorsk that our parents must come to them first. Does not the fact that Lida has returned to Chernogorsk and her request to allow her emigrate has still been refused by the Soviets, tell the American government that it is not possible to trust the Soviets? All along they have said to them that if we go back to Chernogorsk, our applications for emigration would be considered. Now the Soviets do not want to accept Lida's papers, do not want to give her forms, do not want even to talk to her but take her and the other children out of the offices when they come to talk to the authorities. If sometime they talk to the children they joke and lie. Lida is old enough to make decision herself to stay or to leave this country. Why does she need her parents to be back before her request for emigration is considered? We think that both governments, the Soviet and American, have handled our case carelessly. One constantly deceives, the other does not take any serious action to pressure the Soviets and make them tell the truth and act accordingly. We think that the American government also wants us to go back to Chernogorsk because the only words we have heard from them is that they would allow us to leave this country directly from the Embassy only if the Soviets will give us permission first. But how can the Soviets give us the permission if, as Senator Percy told us during his visit in the end of November 1980, we would give him a written pledge that we would go back to Chernogorsk, then, he would ask permission for our emigration the next day in talks with high Soviet government officials. This policy remains until this day. We are turning to you all to please ask the American government to talk with the Soviets about permission for us to emigrate much more seriously and ask them to work together with the Soviets in order to find a positive solution for all, us and both governments so that we could leave the Soviet Union safely and soon. We gave the pledge to both governments that as soon as we would be assured that our eleven children together with Lida are out of the Soviet Union and we had an assurance from the Soviets that the four of us will not be persecuted but reunited with them in the West in the shortest time, we will leave the American Embassy. We also would like to ask you to please ask the Soviet Ambassadors in your countries and those who come to you from the Soviet Union for conferences and demonstrations in order to talk about peace, trade and so on what price there is on the earth that we can pay to the Soviets to accept our renunciation of their citizenship and allow us to emigrate? If the price of money that was pre-established by the Soviet government is payed to them by us, if interments in prisons, work camps and psychiatric hospitals were spent by us, if thousands of our appeals which would make volumes were during the 22 years sent to them, if our hunger strikes and demonstrations with posters that expressed our long-time request to Brezhnev and his government still are not enough for the Soviets to permit us to leave the serfdom, what price do they wish us to pay? We do not support this thought of Mayakovsky, one of the greatest Soviet poets, "Read and be envious, I am a citizen of the Soviet Union," but we consider it a disgrace that we are citizens of the atheistic serfdom in this country. Thank you very much. Sincerely, LIUBOV, Mr. FRANK. Mr. Chairman, I referred to the letter from Leopold Vashchenko and I apologize to them for my pronunciation of their names. I would only plead that my pronunciation of English is not significantly better so they should not feel discriminated against. I think it is relevant to cite one passage here in particular because we are often asked why are you doing this, what is the point of it? The Soviet Union does not listen. I would like to refer to the second line of the open letter to people in the West: We are especially grateful to those of the American Government who introduced and supported Resolution 100 in the House of Representatives and bill 312 in the Senate, that would grant us residence here and allow us to apply for American citizenship 5 years from the date we first came to the Embassy. We consider the resolution and the bill as an assurance of the American Government that they accept my family for permanent residence in their country which the Soviets wanted us to have when they sent us to the Embassy in 1975. It goes on to thank those who have written them and those who have publicized the cause. Anyone who has any doubt about the ab solute moral imperative that we continue this kind of effort need only consult the letter which Leopold Vashchenko has sent to us. Two people will testify later, Leonard Zakim and Joyce Zakim, who met with the family in the basement of the Embassy and I think they were favorably impressed with the fervor of the people in the Embassy, how important it is to them that we keep this up. Of course, there is one other fact that makes us understand how important and useful this is; namely, that there is nothing the Soviet Union would like to see more than for us to stop. There is nothing that would make the Soviet Union happier than the dissolution of this subcommittee and for all of us to go away, and that means that what we are doing has worth. Those of us who enjoy as a matter of course the freedom of religion, the freedom to travel, freedom of speech, all the freedoms that we have here in America, all of us have a moral obligation to continue ths kind of effort until the freedoms we take for granted are, in fact, enjoyed by others elsewhere. I think we have to continue to say to the Soviet Union that from the standpoint of many of us, there are a lot of areas which we would like to pursue where we have a mutual interest; however, their refusal to recognize the most fundamental human rights of innocent individuals, their persecution of people, has been a major obstacle. These are not people who are trying even to change the Soviet Union politically. They are not trying to undermine the Soviet regime. They simply want to be left in peace. And as long as the Soviet Union is unable to acknowledge even that most basic minimal human right, then there will be obstacles in the way that all of us will regret but they will remain until these basic rights are upheld. Again, I think all of us want to urge the leaders of the Soviet Union to behave like the great power you say you are. It is unworthy. It is simply beneath and ought to be beneath the dignity of a superpower to spend so much time and energy pressing a handful of innocent religious people who simply want to be left alone. That is not a political issue, that is a fundamental human issue and the unwillingness and inability of the Soviet Union to respond with minimal decency to this human issue is, in fact, a very discouraging aspect of current world affairs. Mr. Chairman, again I want to thank you. I submit the letter for the record and I thank the members of your subcommittee for your continued persistence and what sometimes seems like a waste of time, but which we know from the communications that do manage to get out from the Soviet Union are, in fact, vital to the course of human rights. [Mr. Frank's prepared statement follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. BARNEY FRANK, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS Mr. Chairman, before I begin my testimony I would like to express my support for the series of hearings that are being conducted by this committee. By bringing the issue of religious intolerance before this committee Religious tolerance and respect for the pursuit of individual beliefs are fundamental principles which have guided our nation and which receive the protection of the constitution in this country. The protection of these principles is something that we cherish most deeply and it is an idea that many of us view as an intrinsic right of all individuals, a right which knows no boundaries-economic, political or social. As we all know, there are governments which seek to strangle any pursuit of free thought or the pursuit of religious beliefs. Unfortunately, the Soviet Union has consistently acted to stifle the expression of religious values throughout Soviet society. While we cannot expect quick success in persuading them to reverse their intolerance toward religious expression, it is essential that we raise these issues before this body and before the international institutions in which our government particpates. If we allow these intolerances to continue without comment, than we have failed in one of our most important functions: to establish |