ANDREI SAKHAROV
507
science as defined by Amnesty International. Their stories have
much else in common. Their trials were conducted in flagrant viola–
tion of statutory procedures and in defiance of elementary common
sense. My friend Sergei Kovalev was convicted in 1975 in the ab–
sence of the defendant and counsel, that is, with no possibility what–
soever for a defense. He was sentenced to seven years labor camp
and three years internal exile for anti-Soviet agitation and
propaganda allegedly contained in the
samizdat
news magazine
A
Chronicle of Current Events,
but there was no examination of the
substance of the charge.
Comparable breaches of law marked the trials of Yury Orlov,
the founder of the Moscow Helsinki Group, and of other members of
the Helsinki Groups and associated committees: Victor Nekipelov,
Leonard Ternovsky, Mykola Rudenko, Alexander Podrabinek (and
his brother Kirill), Gleb Yakunin, Vladimir Slepak, Malva Landa,
Robert Nazarian, Eduard Arutyunian, Vyacheslav Bakhmin, Oles
Berdnik, Oksana Meshko, Mykola Matusevich and his wife, and
Miroslav Marinovich. Tatiana Osipova, Irina Grivnina, and Felix
Serebrov have been imprisoned pending trial. Yury Orlov's lawyer
missed part of the trial proceedings when he was locked up forcibly
in chambers adjoining the courtroom. Orlov's wife was frisked in a
crude way and her clothing ripped during a search for written notes
or a tape recorder, all from fear that the court's grotesque secrets
might be revealed.
In the labor camps, prisoners of conscience suffer cruel treat–
ment: arbitrary confinement in punishment cells; torture by cold
and hunger; infrequent family visits subject to capricious cancel–
lation; and similar restrictions on correspondence .
They share all the rigors of the Soviet penal regimen for com–
mon criminals while suffering the added strain of pressure to
"embark on the path of reform," i.e., to renounce their beliefs. I
would like to remind you that not once has any international organi–
zation, such as the Red Cross or a lawyer's association , been able to
visit Soviet labor camps.
Political prisoners are often rearrested, and monstrous sen–
tences imposed. Ornithologist Mart Niklus, poet Vasily Stus,
physics teacher Oleksei Tikhy, lawyer Levko Lukyanenko, philolo–
gist Viktoras Petkus and Balys Gajauskas have all received sentences
of ten years labor camp and five years internal exile as recidivists. A
new trial is expected for Paruir Airikian who is still in labor camp .
Within the last few days I have been shocked by the fifth
(!)
arrest of
