HERALD IN UKRAINE EXTERNAL ATION UKRAINIAN NKI NO. 1-3 EXTERNAL REPRESENTATION OF THE UKRAINIAN HELSINKI GROUP HERALD OF REPRESSION IN UKRAINE No. 1 JANUARY 1980 -1- FROM THE EDITORS We believe that there is a pressing need to collect and sys­ tematize the information about repression in Ukraine that we receive from the Soviet Union by various means. The HERALD OF REPRESSION IN UKRAINE is our attempt at such a systematization. It is planned as a periodical monthly publica­ tion. The HERALD will contain the following sectionsi I. Chronicle of Repression II. News about Prisoners 1) In Prisons and in Camps 2) In Psychiatric Hospitals 3) In Exile Ц-) Under Administrative Surveillance III. Samizdat Archive 1) Obtained by various means 2) Published in the press IV. Reports in the Press about Persecuted Persons 1) In the Soviet press 2) In the non-Soviet Ukrainian press 3) In the world press V. Index of Persecuted Persons (biographical information, addresses, family members, etc.) VI. Birthday Greetings VII. Corrections, Additional Information VIII. Miscellaneous Information contained in the first two sections, "Chronicle of Repression" and "News about Prisoners", appears according to a system of numeration preceding the text, in which the first number indicates the issue of the HERALD and the second represents the order of appearance of a certain piece of information in the given issue. Facts considered relevant to the biographies appearing in the "Index of Persecuted Persons" are underlined. IN MEMORY OF HALYNA DYDYK Halyna Tomivna DYDYK, one of the legendary Ukrainian women patriots who were sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment, died on December 23, 1979 in the village of Khrystynivka, Cherkasy Oblast. Halyna DYDYK once headed the Red Cross in Ternopil Oblast and serv­ ed as a courier for the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in Ukraine. Her death came as the result of a heart ailment. Halyna DYDYK was born in 1912. Following her arrest on March 5, 19501 she spent 17 years of her sentence in Vladimir Pris­ on along with Kateryna ZARYTSKA and Darka HUSYAK, and the remaind­ er in Mordovian camp No. 385/6. After being released in the middle of April 1971, she lived for a short time in Berezhany. In July of that same year, she had to move to Karaganda in order to find work. In 1972 she lived for a short while in Nalchik with the family of Yuriy SHUKHEVYCH, and thereupon in the villages of Shybalyn and Bibrka. In 197^ she found two rooms in the village of Khrystynivka in Cherkasy Oblast and lived there until her death. She often traveled to nearby Uman in order to aid the oldest living Ukrainian woman political prisoner, Nadia SUROVTSOVA, and to the village of Vilkhivets to take care of the gravely ill mother of Vyacheslav CHORNOVIL. Halyna DYDYK was buried on December 25, 1979 in Ternopil Oblast, where several of her distant relatives live. This issue of the HERALD is dedicated to the memory of Halyna DYDYK. 2- A very important part of the HERALD is the "Index of Perse­ cuted Persons". It contains the necessary biographical data and the addresses of the prisoners and their families. Section IV will, whenever, possible^ contain a bibliography of materials concerning individual prisoners. An index of names, with references to earlier issues of the HERALD, will appear three times a year, in issues No. k, 8, and 12. The publication of the HERALD depends on the free exchange of information. In order to facilitate the work of informing the public about repression in Ukraine, we ask all news agencies, news­ papers, magazines and individuals to send information, as well as all correspondence relating to the HERALD, to the following addressi Nadia Svitlychna, 9? Mt. Vernon Place, Newark, New Jersey 07106 Tel.i (201) 371-6361 The HERALD appears simultaneously in English and in Ukrain­ ian. A one-year subscription costs $20.00 (or $30.00 for both the English and Ukrainian editions). Please send checks or money orders to 1 Ukrainian Helsinki Group, P.C. Sox 770, Cooper Station, New York, N.Y. 10003 -з CHRONICLE OF REPRESSION I 1-1 I THE SIRY FAMILY. The family of the Odessa worker, Leonid SIRY, has been petitioning to leave the USSR for several years. In the last half year the persecution of the SIRY family as a result of their petitioning has taken the following coursei On June 20, 1979, Leonid SIRY was summoned to a meeting with the director of the "Antarktyka" ship repair facility, BARANOV, the deputy director YELIZAROV, the trade union representative HOLOVKO, the brigade leader YAROSINSKY, the turner PYVOVARSKY and others. There they read SIRY's letter to the president of the AFL-CIO, George Weany, written in 1977. Those present demanded that charges be lodged against SIRY and that he be stripped of his rights as a father (the SIRY couple has 8 children). On June 26, 1979, SIRY's case was discussed at a general meeting of all plant em­ ployees. On July 16, 1979» the SIRY's apartment was searched. The search lasted from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and was conducted by nine KGB agents. The following materials were confiscated! A. SOLZHENITSYN'S "Letter to Soviet Leaders," A. MARCHENKO'S "My Testimony," photo­ graphs of dissidents and several letters. In the evening, L. SIRY and his wife were taken to KGB headquarters for questioning in con­ nection with the case of MONAKOV (Investigator LEMESHKO conducted the interrogation). On July 17, 1979» L. SIRY was interrogated by SHUMYLO, while his wife Valentyna SIRA was questioned by HRAZHDAN. On July 20, 1979» SIRY was once again summoned for questioning, but he refused to give testimony. He was summoned yet another time on July 30» 1979» questioned about the letters, threatened with incar­ ceration on the basis of Art. 62 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrain­ ian SSR, and was told that his wife would be placed in a psychiatric hospital, while his children would be put in an orphanage and raised "in a Soviet manner." On July 31» 1979» he was summoned once again by the KGB. On August 3» 1979» KGB agents came to see L. SIRY at his place of work and told him to renounce his intention to emi- - 4 - grate, or they would be forced to jail him. On August 31» 1979> the SIRY's daughter VIKTORIYA (age 15) was beaten up by their neigh­ bors, the NYEHROVs. On the orders of the school physician, the SIRY's son EDUARD (age 16) was taken for observation to the psychi­ atric clinic. On November 19, 1979» the SIRYs were summoned to the Office of Visas and Registration (OVIR) and informed that they were being denied emigration because of their parents' refusal to allow them to leave the USSR. KGB agent SHUMYLO had spoken with Leonid SIRY's mother, and KGB agent HRAZHDAN with his wife Valenty- na's mother. In these conversations, the KGB officials demanded that the two mothers prevail upon their children. Under the influ­ ence of the "chat," L. SIRY's mother wrote a statement in which she renounced her son. She was told that her refusal to do so would be regarded as support for her son's enemy activity. The SIRYs new address isi 270010, 0desa-10, vul. Herani- yeva, 12, kv. 58. Г 1-2 I On November 29, 1979, the writer B. D. ANT0NENK0- DAVYDOVYCH was placed under house arrest. That day he was to have attended a gathering at the Union of Writers of Ukraine dedicated to the memory of the persecuted and posthumously rehabilitated writer H. KOSYNKA. ANTONENKO-DAVYDOVYCH's apartment was searched. I 1-3 I The trial of 3aptists Ivan KYRYLYUK, Vyacheslav ZA- YETS, Viktor LYT0VCHENK0 and Viktor DRAHA ended on December 3, 1979 ' in the city of Kirovohrad. I.KYRYLYUK (b. 1930) was sentenced to 12 years of camp imprisonment. V. ZAYETS (b. 1940) to 10 years. V. LYT0VCHENK0 (b. 1950) to 7 years and V. DRAHA (b. 1951) to 1 years. The defendants pleaded innocent. It was learned that they had been on a 35-day hunger strike before the trial. Their lawyers demanded that they be cleared on all counts. Because of numerous procedural violations, they also demanded that the judge be replaced. - 5- However, their demands were rejected. Some 80 witnesses were ques­ tioned, all of whom gave positive evidence in behalf of the accused. Provocations were the norm during the trial. Six persons were fined for attempting to "start a fight.” I 1-k I THE SENTENCING OF HELSINKI GROUP MEMBERS VASYL AND FETRO SICHKO. Petro SICHKO and his son Vasyl were tried on Decem­ ber 1979 by the Lviv Oblast Court on charges of disseminating maliciously slanderous fabrications about the Soviet state and so­ cial order (Art. 18?1 of the CC UkSSR). The court consisted ofi Judge KRYUCHKOV, Procurator RUDENKO (the deputy of the oblast pro­ curator ANTONENKO), and people's assessors CHUPENKO and SHALOTKIN. The defendants were charged with speaking at the grave of composer Volodymyr IVA3YUK on June 10, 1979 at the Lychakiv Cemetary in Lviv. The charges against Vasyl SICHKO (the son) included poems he had written as a student, which had been confiscated during the search conducted on the day of the arrest, August 5. 1979. The poems were contained in a single copy of a notebook which had never circulated in samizdat. Petro SICHKO was also charged with his let­ ter of April 30, 1979, in which he protested the repression of mem­ bers of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group. Both defendants pleaded in­ nocent and boycotted the court proceedings.