"ATROCIOUS TORTURES"

Taranaki Daily News, 4 August 1930, Page 9

"ATROCIOUS TORTURES"

FOURTEEN COLONISTS SHOOT HARBOURED RUSSIAN PRIEST 19 130 FOR NOTORIOUS PRISON By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 5.5 p.m. London, Aug. 2, Latvian papers declare the Russian secret police, the Telteka, after atrocious tortures shot fourteen Lettish colonists in the province of Smolensk' on a charge of harbouring a priest and attending services in contravention of the rules restricting the movement and activities of ministers of religion, says the Riga correspondent of the Times. Despite the appeals of relatives to bury the dead privately the bodies were thrown into a common grave.. The victims’ property, even their clothing, was confiscated, . this leaving the families destitute.

The' Tcheka also sent 130 colonists who had attended services to the- notorious Solovetsky prison camp, where conditions are described as “hell.”