Soviet Rights Violations Found to Persist : Oppression: Despite progress under Gorbachev, a study tells of political prisoners, emigration barriers and restrictions on religion.

In a damning indictment of Soviet human rights practices in the sixth year of Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s rule, an international watchdog group on Monday condemned what it called widespread and continuing violations, including imprisonment for political motives, barriers to free emigration and prisoners living in “slavery.”

The conclusions of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights after two days of hearings in Moscow were a definite blow to the Soviet leadership’s assiduous campaign to create a new image for itself in the human rights arena. The independent, non-governmental group said it will present its findings formally when a 35-nation meeting on human rights in Europe opens today in Copenhagen, Denmark, in effect obliging the Kremlin to prepare some sort of reply.

Despite distinct progress in the human rights field under Gorbachev, “we still have a long way to go,” said Karl von Schwarzenberg, chairman of the Vienna-based watchdog group, which has affiliates in 17 countries, including the United States. He said, however, that many current violations could be linked to problems or practices that Gorbachev inherited.

The very process used by the Helsinki group to assess the rights and civic protections of Soviet citizenry was proof of the dramatic changes in society since Gorbachev became Kremlin leader in March, 1985.

The group held public hearings without official interference over the weekend at a hotel complex in southwestern Moscow, and members were received by officials from the Foreign Ministry, Interior Ministry, the Moscow City Council and other government agencies.

Though they complained of numerous difficulties in obtaining Soviet entry visas for foreign participants, whose ranks included former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, they ran into only one closed door in Moscow, at the Serbsky Psychiatric Institute, notorious during the 1970s and early 1980s as a place where dissidents were subjected to forced drug therapy as though they were insane.

“We tried to contact the Serbsky Institute, where a meeting was already fixed, but got a message that we could come only if our Russian members didn’t come,” Von Schwarzenberg told a news conference. When the Helsinki group insisted that its Soviet representatives also attend, “they declined to see us, telling us that our Russian members were insane,” he said.

Through the testimony of some 60 people from all 15 Soviet republics, the federation, created to monitor compliance with the human rights provisions of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, established a wide range of “continuing” violations in the Soviet Union, ranging from ill treatment of prisoners to official restrictions on religion and emigration.

Their findings are likely to be a major embarrassment for the Soviets, who want to host an all-European conference on human rights, also attended by U.S. and Canadian officials, in Moscow next year. They face opposition from some Western countries that contend Soviet abuses are still too flagrant.

Irwin Cotler, co-chairman of the Canadian Helsinki Group and a law professor at McGill University in Montreal, acknowledged that the panel’s bleak findings clash with some Westerners’ perception that with the advent of Gorbachev, all human rights problems in the Soviet Union had ceased.

When Gorbachev came to Canada last week en route to Washington, “I was not among those who were cheering,” noted Cotler, who has represented several Soviet Jews seeking to emigrate. “I was among those who were making representations to Gorbachev.”

In its report, to be presented in detail to the “human dimensions” conference in Copenhagen, the International Helsinki Federation found:

“There is not yet true freedom of the press” in the Soviet Union. Offices of non-government newspapers have been burglarized or ransacked. Non-official newspapers cannot buy newsprint, use state-owned printing presses or sell through the official Soyuzpechat distribution network.

“The right to leave the Soviet Union is often denied” despite Kremlin protests to the contrary. In some cases, refugees granted U.S. visas after a one-year wait have been refused official permission to leave the country on grounds that they have not received an invitation from an immediate family member overseas.

“There are severe restrictions on the freedom of religion. . . . The leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church is in effect appointed by the Communist Party.”

Every year, “hundreds” of Soviet army conscripts die in what family members say are the murders of young men who contest compulsory military service. Soviet authorities refuse to investigate those allegations.

There are as many as 188 “alleged political prisoners” still held in Soviet prisons and labor camps, as well as cases of psychiatric detention that arouse concern. “Though people are no longer imprisoned for anti-Soviet propaganda alone, they are convicted of the crime of hooliganism for apparent political activities.”

One prisoner, Mikhail Kazachkov, currently in Chistopol prison, has been confined for 14 1/2 years “for wanting to leave the Soviet Union” and go to Israel.

“Pamyat and other openly anti-Semitic organizations have been threatening Jews with impunity.”

People in Byelorussia living near the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster are not allowed to leave, and information about the dangers of radiation is kept secret. People who do leave cannot get jobs or homes in other locations.

Convicts placed in forced labor programs in lieu of prison “are subjected to working and living conditions akin to slavery.”

Prison conditions are appalling and fail to meet United Nations guidelines, with overcrowding, poor nutrition, inadequate medical service and commonplace beatings. Over 70% of the country’s tuberculosis cases are reportedly former prisoners.

Legal defense for the accused is “imperfect,” and people accused of crimes can be interrogated without a lawyer for up to 24 hours after their detention.

Refugees fleeing ethnic turmoil that is now a fact of life in several Soviet regions have no right of residence in Moscow and are not given jobs, accommodations or social assistance. They “live in miserable conditions, on the streets, on the floors of buildings.”

“Law reform proceeds at a snail’s pace,” and the greater freedoms inaugurated under Gorbachev have not yet been guaranteed by new laws.

Soviet authorities “have not yet adequately” explained the fate of Raoul Wallenberg despite “credible evidence” that the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Nazis was still alive in the 1980s. The Soviets maintain that Wallenberg died in a Soviet prison in 1947.

NEXT STEP

An East-West conference on “human dimensions” will receive the report on human rights in the Soviet Union and consider it during a monthlong conference that opens with a broad agenda today in Copenhagen. Foreign ministers of 35 nations, including Secretary of State James A. Baker III and his Soviet counterpart, Eduard A. Shevardnaze, will take part in the first two days of the Copenhagen talks. Afterward, delegates led by senior diplomats will debate and draft a final conference document. The long-term aim of the conference is to ensure protection for all civil rights in Europe, including free elections, pluralistic politics and freedom of speech, assembly and religion.