Reagan Assails Rights Abuses, Calls Soviet Dissident a Martyr

President Reagan on Wednesday described Soviet dissident Anatoly Marchenko, whose death in prison was disclosed Tuesday in Moscow, as “a martyr for the cause of human rights.”

In a speech marking Human Rights Day, the President criticized rights abuses around the world, including South Africa, saying, “The system of apartheid and the state of emergency in South Africa are unconscionable and must be ended.

“The brutality and repression in Ethiopia, Angola, or any other repressive African regime, are of no less concern,” he added.

Helsinki Commitments

It was the Soviet Union and other Communist nations, however, that drew Reagan’s strongest ire, including a pledge to “hold the Soviet Union to human rights commitments it made at Helsinki,” where an international rights accord was signed in 1975.

Joined by Yuri Orlov and Anatoly Shcharansky--who were freed from Soviet confinement in the past year to emigrate to the West--Reagan said, “I can promise you, Mr. Marchenko and so many others have not died in vain.

“The Soviet government, despite a few gestures this year, gestures that reflect posturing more than flexibility, continues its systematic violation of human rights,” Reagan said.

‘Opposite Is True’

“The new Soviet emigration law, for example, purports to ease restrictions. Yet for far too many, the opposite is true. The restriction of emigration, the suppression of dissent, the lengthy separation of families and spouses, the continued imprisonment of religious activists in the Ukraine and throughout the Soviet Union are the orders of the day,” he said.

Reagan said that the “realities” of the Soviet Union are unchanged. And, he vowed:

“We will continue to do our utmost to press for change, and to bring our moral and diplomatic weight to bear on behalf of those brave souls who speak out within the Soviet Bloc.

“The only thing produced in abundance by Marxism-Leninism has been deprivation and tyranny,” Reagan said. “From Ethiopia to Cuba, from the Soviet Union itself, which is beginning to fall even further behind the Western democracies, to Vietnam, throughout the Communist world the cupboards are empty and the jails are full.”

Reagan also signed a proclamation marking the 38th anniversary of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was issued Dec. 10, 1948.