World-wide relief

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32494, 2 January 1971, Page 15

World-wide relief

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) TEL AVIV, Jan. 1. The Israeli Prime Minister (Mrs Golda Meir) yesterday led world-wide expressions of relief at the Russian decision to commute the death sentences passed on two of the accused, both of Jewish parentage, at the trial.

But Mrs Meir said that she hoped international efforts would continue to stop "punishing Jews in the Soviet Union for wanting to come to Israel.”

“I am certain that a wave of identification here, and the humanitarian reaction throughout the world, caused ■the Soviet legal authorities to lighten the sentences,” she said. The Vatican, West Germany and many Western European countries quickly announced their satisfaction at the decision to commute the sentences passed on the two men, Mark Dymshits and Edouard Kuznetsov. A spokesman at the Vatican, which had previously indicated that it had appealed to the Russian authorities for clemency, said that the Holy See was satisfied that the sentences had been commuted. The French Foreign Minister (Mr Mqurice Schumann) said curtly: “I would only have had something to say if there had been no reprieve.” Christians throughout the

world would join with the Jewish community in thankfulness for the reprieve, said the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr Michael Ramsay): The Norwegian Prime Minister (Mr Per Borten) said it was a happy sign that regimes such as those in the Soviet Union and Spain could be influenced by world opinion.