Метка: TRANSLATIONS*

The Death of Marchenko (8 Dec ’86)

«USSR News Brief, 15 December 1986» (Issue 22/23-1)

On 8 December 1986 Anatoly MARCHENKO (b. 1938), a political prisoner for many years, died in the maximum-security Chistopol Prison (Tatarstan). For several months prior to his death, he had been on hunger strike, started on 8 August 1986 (1986: 17-7, 15 September). Official reports of his death are contradictory: some talk of a cerebral haemorrhage, others of a heart attack.

Bogoraz, Marchenko and their son Pavel

A few days before his death, his wife Larisa Bogoraz received a postcard from Marchenko, requesting that she send him a food parcel. He had ended his hunger strike, in other words. A number of expressions in his postcard could be interpreted to mean that Marchenko was in the prison infirmary and was about to be transferred somewhere else, i.e. that the remainder of his ten-year sentence had been revoked. It’s difficult now to establish whether this interpretation is correct.

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Large Group Released (Feb ’87)

<<USSR News Brief, 15 February 1987>>

«Large group of Political Prisoners released»

During the first week in February 1987 a large group of political prisoners were released from the political camps, from Chistopol Prison (Tatarstan) and from internal exile.

Русский оригиналь

(1987, 3-1)

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[NOTE]

{{Throughout 1987 there were often erroneous reports about the release of individuals still in the camps or in exile. There were not, as Gerasimov asserted in February, ‘140’ liberated prisoners and exiles: Lyubarsky listed only 34, two of whom (Nos 3 & 15), as it turned out, had NOT yet been released.

In this article, and in reports that followed throughout 1987, the names & surnames of those not yet released are italicised in the text and lists, ed.}}

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The prisoners or exiles were released on the basis of two decrees issued in February 1987 by the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet:

  • Decree No. 6463-xi — pardoning of a listed group of individuals;
  • Decree No. 6462-xi — release of another group “from continuing to serve their sentence”.

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FIVE SECTIONS

[1]

«9 FEBRUARY 1987» DECREE

At a press conference on 11 February 1987, USSR Foreign Ministry (MFA) spokesman Gennady Gerasimov stated that yet another decree concerning the release of the prisoners had been passed by the Presidium on 9 February 1987.

Gennady Gerasimov

It has still not been published. No one has been freed since 9 February, moreover, whose release could be linked to that decree.

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The information we’re receiving about the release of prisoners & exiles is quite contradictory.

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