BRITISH PROTEST REJECTED

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 191, 11 May 1938, Page 11

BRITISH PROTEST REJECTED

Woman’s Imprisonment In Russia ‘

(Received May 10, 7.5 p.m.)

Moscow, May 10.

The Soviet has rejected the British protest regarding the imprisonment of the British woman Communist, Rose Cohen, on the grounds that she married a Russian, surrendered hep British passport, and wag admitted to Soviet citizenship at her own request in 1936. For this reason she was amenable to Russian law. •

A message from London on April 24 said that, acting on instructions from the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, the British Ambassador, Lord Chilston, vigorously protested against the arrest and solitary confinement for eight months of a British woman Communist, Rose Cohen, aged 44. Lord Chilston informed the Soviet Foreign Minister, M. Litvinov, that the Soviet had contravened the agreement of July 14, 1937, under which Britain granted the Soviet access to Russians arrested almost throughout the whole of the British Empire. Russia pledged herself to notify the British Embassy of the arrest and imprisonment of British subjects. Lord Chilston told ‘M. Litvinov that Britain took the gravest view of the Cohen and other cases, and if the attitude was persisted in it would seriously prejudice Anglo-Russian relations. Miss Cohen, who for many years was foreign editor of the semi-official Moscow “Daily News,” was detained in the Ogpu’s secret .prisons on charges of espionage and conspiracy. Iler arrest was not admitted until recently, despite Lord Chilston’s frequent inquiries.