‘Hope for Freedom’

The papers are filled with good news. Anatoly Shcharanksy has been released from the Soviet Union! This landmark diplomatic exchange is a triumph for human rights advocates everywhere. However, for the Christian community, it provides a grim reminder.

Although Shcharansky is free, 11 Christian fathers in the Soviet maritime village of Cheguevka remain imprisoned for their faith. And because of prison sentences, 44 children in that little community remain fatherless.

Cheguevka’s Christian congregation has refused to officially register their church due to the enormous compromises of conviction this would require. Additionally, because most of them are of German extraction, they have applied for emigration through Soviet law. These factors have contributed to some of the heaviest repression imaginable.

Most of the children in the community have been violently assaulted at school.

Seventeen-year-old church member Ivan Belousov was tortured with a welding lamp, and later--accidentally--burned.

Pregnant Olga Lobanova, (wife of one of the imprisoned fathers and sister of the church’s imprisoned pastor) was kicked in the abdomen repeatedly by a senior lieutenant of the Soviet militia’s Criminal Investigative Department. Her child was born two months early and died 20 days after birth.

Shcharansky’s release shows us that the climate is right for steps to be taken on behalf of Cheguevka’s villagers. At least one human rights organization, Friends in the West, is working diligently toward this end. They were highly instrumental in the release of both Georgi Vins and the Siberian Seven, and can be contacted for further information at P.O. Box 15209, Seattle, Wash. 98115.

LELA GILBERT

Lake Arrowhead