Soviet exile arrested by Paris police

Press, 24 February 1977, Page 6

Soviet exile arrested by Paris police

NZPA-Reuter Moscow i NZPA Paris 1 The exiled dissident Soviet | historian, Mr Andrei Amal- ■ rik, was taken into custody ;by the police for questioning 'yesterday as he was preparing to start a hunger strike ■ outside the Elysee Palace, j He was taken away soon: after he arrived outside the palace carrying a placard 'bearing the words. "Insist on the application ot the Heisinki agreements.” He was released after about half an 'hour and returned to his vigil. tin Monday, Mr Arnalrik s : request for a meeting with the French President (Mr Giscard d'Estaing), who is away on a ski-ing holiday,! was turned down and he re-' fused to meet a Foreign Min-i • istry official dealing with'; .human rights. On Wednesday, Mr Amalrik, who represents abroad' the dissident Soviet group:: monitoring Soviet applica-’ ition of the Helsinki agree- |t Intents, said he was dis-p 'tressed that President | d’Estaing was avoiding a : ■ meeting. He added that the; Soviet authorities were using: the President as a Trojan 11 horse to sow discord in the'i West. i He said that, the Soviet : authorities were frightened’ by President Carter’s strong: stand in favour of human h rights and would be happy || to find a means of countering ' his initiative. 11 A 33-year-old dissident 11 who has spent a total of 1 nine years in Soviet mental homes must stay in hospital 11 because his “psychic disease" i has worsened, the official ’ I Soviet news agency Tass has j i said. ;

The agency did not specify Vladimir Borisov's illness, but said that his recovery prospects were good if he got “absolute calm.” Tass said that it had investigated the case of Borisov, who was picked up on a Leningrad street and taken to a psychiatric hospital on Christmas Day because Western newspapers had recently raised a “hullabaloo” about

Borisov was examined a few days ago at the request ’of his relatives by a commission of prominent Leningrad psychiatrists, the agency said. The commission "ascertained that at the given moment Borisov needed hospitalisation in connection with the aggravation of the psychic disease from which he has been suffering since his early years.” Tass quoted Mikhail Isakov, chief doctor at the hospital where Borisov is being held, as saying Borisov needed “serious treatment and absolute calm.” The Soviet Union has accused the Voice of America of slander and psychological warfare, possibly laying the groundwork for banning its broadcasts, which were first permitted into the U.S.S.R. three years ago.