Soviet police outspoken

Press, 17 March 1977, Page 8

Soviet police outspoken

NZPA-Reuter Moscow The Soviet Jewish activist, Mr Anatoly Scheransky, has been seized by plain clothes police and bundled into a car in full view of foreign journalists.

He is the third leading member of a self-appointed group monitoring Soviet implementation of humanrights sections of the 1975 Helsinki Declaration to be detained in the last six weeks. The detention of the 29-year-old former computer programmer came after an attack on him and other Jewish activists in the Government newspaper, "Izvestia.” 11 days ago which accused them of working for the American Central Intelligence Agency. Mr Scheransky had been followed by a group of eight plainclothes men for the last two weeks. It is presumed that he was taken to a

police station. But it was not immediately clear whether he was being held for questioning or whether — like other Helsinki group members, Mr Alexander Ginzburg and Mr Yuri Orlov — he would be kept in jail to face charges. The incident came only two hours after the official announcement of the release of Dr Mikhail Shtern, whose trial on bribery charges in 1974 evoked strong protest abroad.

The timing of the announcement of Dr Shtern’s release suggested to observers in Moscow that the Soviet Union was trying to muffle the. impact of Mr Scheransky’s detention on the Western public.

The United States expressed official concern over the seizure of Mr Ginzburg last month, and said it was closely following the Orlov case.

Moscow may be trying to head off renewed United