Torture by Diet

New ordeal for Shcharansky

The 400 Jews who gathered in a Jerusalem park last week to commemorate the 34th birthday of Soviet Dissenter Anatoli Shcharansky were more in a mood for lamentation than for celebration. The group, which included his wife Avital, discussed Shcharansky's new ordeals in prison, then trudged through the city on a pilgrimage to the Western Wall, where prayers were offered for Shcharansky's health, his release from captivity and his arrival in Israel.

The ceremony reflected renewed concern about Shcharansky, who became a world-renowned political prisoner and a symbol of official Soviet anti-Semitism following his well-publicized trial in 1978. A champion of human rights in the U.S.S.R., he had been made the victim of a trumped-up treason case. Shcharansky was accused of spying for the U.S. and sentenced to three years in prison and ten in a hard-labor camp, despite his denial and President Jimmy Carter's categorical refutation of the charges.

For the past year, the Soviets have singled him out for punishment by slow starvation. After a closely monitored two-hour meeting with Shcharansky in early January his mother, Ida Milgrom, reported: "He looked so pale and so thin. For one year he has been starving. If he remains in this present situation he won't survive."

During 1981, Shcharansky was often kept on a 1,300-to 1,400-calorie meatless diet consisting of some fish, cabbage, potatoes, bread and cereal, plus minute amounts of flour, oil and tomato paste. On alternate days he received only bread, hot water and salt. Shcharansky, who weighed about 134 Ibs. at the time of his arrest in 1977, was down to about 110 Ibs. He was hospitalized for 33 days at the end of the summer. According to his mother, Shcharansky was subsequently sentenced to spend three more years in prison instead of spending this time in labor camp.

The persecution of Shcharansky is part of a pattern of increasingly severe treatment of dissidents, Jews and other ethnic minorities that has coincided with the deterioration of U.S.-Soviet relations. Soviet leaders have increased the arrests of dissidents and cut back drastically on the number of Jews allowed to emigrate. By the end of 1981 emigration had dropped to an average of 380 people a month, an 82% decline over the previous two years. One of those allowed to emigrate earlier was Avital Shcharansky, 31, who met Secretary of State Alexander Haig during his trip to Israel two weeks ago. He promised her that he would raise Shcharansky's case with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko when they meet in Geneva this week.

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