'Shameful silence’

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34133, 21 April 1976, Page 15

' Shameful silence ’

(y .Z .PA.Reuter—Copyright) I MOSCOW. April 20. 1 A Soviet Union histor-, ian has called on his colleagues to give up their “shameful silence”; and to fight for an am-| nesty for political; prisoners in the Soviet I Union as well as in the rest of the world. Dr Alexander Nekrich, who is 56, issued his appeal in a statement to Western journalists about the trial of last week of the Crimean Tartar activist. Mustafa Dzhemilyov, who was imprisoned for 2| years by a court in Omsk. Dr Nekrich said that the sentence was handed down despite the fact that the chief prosecution witness had told the judge that he had been intimidated by investigators. “During the trial," the historian added, “the elementary norms of law were trampled under foot.” The statement is believed to be the first dissident document issued by Dr Nekrich, who was expelled from the Communist Party in 1967 after a book he published in Moscow about events of the Second World War had incurred official wrath. Written during the rule of •the former Soviet Union ; leader. Mr Nikita KhrushIchev — who had himself i made similar criticisms of ’ Stalin's policies — the book (angered Mr Krushchev’s 'successors, who were work-

I ing to restore in part Sta-I Ilin’s image. ' Dr Nekrich. a senior re-: search worker at the Academy of Sciences’ institute i of general history, said that he believed the authorities ‘ were afraid to free Dzhemilyov, who has spent most of | his adult life in prison or i campaigning for the right of : his people to return home. I (The Tartars were expelled j from the Crimea in 1944 on i: , charges of having collabo-! rated with the Germans in!:

[the Second World War. The}' ! were later rehabilitated, but not given the right to return from Central Asia, where they had been settled). Dr Nekrich said: “It is the duty of all historians not to shut their eyes to the lawlessness and illegality being committed. They ” should fight for an amnesty for political prisoners throughout the world, but, above fall, in our own country. ' “Let us give up our ‘shameful silence.”