Moscow Says U.S. Exploits Michael Jackson

As a dozen Soviet dissidents marking International Human Rights Day were arrested today in Pushkin Square for distributing leaflets and trying to make speeches, the official media attacked the United States on human rights, citing entertainer-turned-mogul Michael Jackson as a black man being exploited by capitalists.

The Soviet media praised the human rights record of the Soviet Union and accused the United States of being “the most malicious violators” of human rights in the world today.

Soviet television showed a documentary leading off with pop singer Jackson as an example of a black person who sold out to exploiting capitalists.

It also showed film clips of the Ku Klux Klan burning a cross, black demonstrations and homeless people in the streets.

Exploitation of Masses

Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper, said, “The history of capitalism is a history of the ruthless exploitation of the working masses, enslavement of whole peoples, aggressive wars and conflicts, violation of elementary human rights and liberties.

“Tens of millions of people remain rightless, doomed to poverty and a miserable existence in capitalist countries. Capitalism denies the individual his most natural and vital right--the right to work.”

By contrast, Pravda said, the Soviet Union guarantees all citizens work, housing, education, health protection and equality for all ethnic groups.

In Pushkin Square, uniformed police and plainclothes KGB agents wrestled one activist to the ground and confiscated a handful of leaflets before reporters and diplomatic observers could grab a copy.

Another man was grabbed as he attempted to climb the statue of poet Alexander Pushkin and announced he was “going to cite some verse” amid a swirling snowstorm.

As in previous years, the protesters were taken to nearby buses and driven away for questioning before they could gather into an organized demonstration, in which they traditionally remove their hats in a symbolic salute to human rights.