Plight of Moroz

To the Editors:

Word has just reached us that Valentyn Moroz is preparing to go on a hunger strike “till death” in his Vladimir prison isolation cell. Moroz is a remarkable thirty-eight-year-old Ukrainian historian who is currently serving his second sentence for anti-Soviet propaganda. He is best known for his essay “Report from the Beria Preserve” which describes the concentration camps and analyzes life under the KGB in a society he calls “the empire of cogs.” He has been systematically starved, repeatedly assaulted and injured by his brutal criminal cellmates. Moroz is now once more in solitary confinement, ill and exhausted. He has been administered strong drugs which he fears are damaging his brain. “I would rather die from hunger than go insane,” he states in his demand to be released from solitary confinement.

Moroz’s first book of essays will be published in Canada in June. We wonder if he will be alive for the event. Protests concerning him should be addressed to President Podgorny and to Ambassador Dobrynin.

Rose Styron

Amnesty International

New York City