Dissident describes torture by deprivation

Press, 15 February 1986, Page 11

Dissident describes torture by deprivation

NZPA-Reuter Jerusalem The freed Soviet Jewish dissident, Anatoly Shcharansky, whose struggle to emigrate to Israel lasted 13 years, has captured the imagination of his new homeland in only two days. At his first news conference yesterday, he fielded questions with ease in Russian, Hebrew, and English. He grimly recalled life in Soviet prisons and labour camps, saying he was dragged unconscious after spending his longest period — 130 days — in an isolated cell.

“If you ask 'Were you tortured?’ and are thinking of beatings, no, I was not. But in the Soviet prison system, there is torture by punishment cell, which means torture by hunger and cold.” But the diminutive, balding Mr Shcharansky, who is 38, also showed a sense of humour that had reporters laughing. Since arriving on Tuesday after his release in an EastWest prisoner exchange he has captivated the Israeli public.

Journalists who knew him in Moscow, where he was spokesman for dissident groups and for Jews seeking to emigrate, say he appears to have lost none of his sparkle.

Some Israelis believe the country’s battling political parties will seek to capitalise on his popularity. One of the first ques-

tions at the news conference was how he would deal with probable attempts to recruit him into politics.

“I don’t know. But one thing I can tell you: the Communist Party won’t be able to recruit me,” he said.

Sympathisers and hotel personnel applauded when, questioned on his definition of Zionism, he replied, “A Zionist is anyone who struggles for the Jewish State, who wants to see it strong or who fights abroad for the right of Jews to emigrate to Israel.”

His wife Avital, aged 35, campaigned on diplomatic doorsteps world wide for his release.

Mrs Shcharansky left the Soviet Union the day after their wedding, in 1974, believing he would be allowed to follow her soon afterwards. She waited nearly 12 years.

Since her arrival in Israel she has become more observant of Jewish religious law and wears a head-covering in public, an Orthodox woman’s symbol of modesty. Israeli newspapers have already said it will be interesting to see how the couple will accord their views. Mr Shcharansky has appeared without the religious skull-cap.

He told an interviewer on Wednesday that faith had helped him through his years of suffering but he had not grown up

observing Jewish religious law.

Mr Shcharansky said the first sign that he might be released had been on Monday, when he was taken from a Moscow prison cell and given civilian clothes instead of his inmate’s uniform.

He had been transferred to the prison from a labour camp beyond the Ural Mountains on December 25 and placed on a special diet to fatten him up, which included vitamins, meat and butter — which he had not seen for years. Mr Shcharansky, who said he put on 10kg during the period, assumed he was being prepared for a visit from his mother. He had been given the same treatment before a visit’ from her several years ago. He had become excited when, after being taken to an airport by four secret policemen, he saw from the position of the sun that the aircraft he was flying in was heading west.

Just before the plane landed one of his guards informed him he was being deprived of Soviet citizenship and expelled from the Soviet Union “because of my bad behaviour.”

“I answered that I was happy that my request to emigrate had finally been met after 13 years.” Mr Shcharansky, who had never been out of the

Soviet Union before, said he had presumed he was abroad because he did not recognise the type of buildings outside the airport.

“I asked a K.G.B. guard where we were and he replied that he did not know... when I saw the initials D.D.R. (East Germany) on buildings, I must say I was somewhat disappointed.” A car was waiting near the plane with an East German official and an interpreter, who informed him he was in East Berlin.

"I told them that, as a Jew, I had mixed feelings about Berlin but that in prison I had just been reading Schiller and Goethe and would very much appreciate their pointing out the sights to me. The atmosphere, initially tense, instantly warmed up,” he said. Mr Shcharansky said he learned what was taking place when he arrived at the office of an East German lawyer, Wolfgang Vogel, who has handled several other prisoner exchanges, and was informed by the United States Ambassador to East Germany that he would be freed the next day. Mr Shcharansky said he had spent the night under guard in a villa with a Czechoslovak national also due to be released before being taken the next morning to a crossing point to West Berlin.