Police Break Up Moscow Protest by Jewish Refuseniks
About 50 Soviet Jews who have been refused permission to emigrate urged President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev today to take up their cause at the superpower summit.
Dozens of uniformed and plainclothes police officers shouted at the demonstrators to disperse and ripped down some of the protesters’ posters during the 1 1/2-hour protest within sight of the Kremlin, where Reagan and Gorbachev will meet starting Sunday. But unlike past protests, the officers did not arrest or detain any of the demonstrators, gathered outside the Lenin Library.
“A World Without Missiles or Refuseniks,” proclaimed one large banner, made of wallpaper. “We Welcome the Summit,” read another poster, which plainclothes KGB officers ripped from the hands of 30-year-old Marina Durnovo.
Asked why she wanted to leave, Durnovo replied: “It’s impossible to live in this country.”
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