Kremlin forces dissidents to end fast

Press, 7 December 1981, Page 8

Kremlin forces dissidents to end fast

NZPA-Reuter Moscow The Soviet dissident leader. Andrei Sakharov, and his wife went into a third day of enforced medical treatment for their hunger strike yesterday while friends tried unsuccessfully to gain information about their condition. Liza Alexeyeva, the 26-year-old woman whose plight triggered their fast, said K.G.B. officers had prevented her from visiting Professor Sakharov and his wife, Yelena Bonner, in the provincial city of Gorky. Friends in Moscow said a blanket of secrecy imposed by Soviet authorities made it difficult to gain direct information on Dr Sakharov, aged 60, a physicist, and his wife, who were taken into hospital against their will on Saturday. • ■ Miss Alexeyeva had tried to board a train to Gorky, where Professor Sakharov was exiled nearly two years ago, but said she was prevented by the K.G.B. She was bundled into a

car. driven to the outskirts of Moscow and told not to try again to travel to Gorky, 400 km east of Moscow. She was detained for about two hours and was told by the K.G.B. that if she “was clever” she would heed a request they had made to her 18 months ago to stay away from Gorky. She told correspondents that she still intended to try to visit the Sakharovs soon, and said she told the Soviet security police that she would not change her mind. Earlier, the Soviet Government daily, “Izvestia,” announced that the Sarharov’s were undergoing “preventive medical treatment” ' in Gorky. . They began their hunger strike two weeks ago to put pressure on the authorities to grant an exit visa to Miss Alexeyeva, who wants to join Dr.. Sakharov’s stepson, Alexei Semyonov, who.'now lives in the United States. The two were married by proxy in a special ceremony last (northern) summer.