10 Freed From Notorious Gulag
Ten political prisoners were freed Friday from the notorious labor camp known as Perm 35, news reports said, as Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin sought to shut down the vestiges of the Soviet gulag.
A week ago, Yeltsin had described the 10 as the last prisoners of conscience in Russia. Human rights activists, however, say there are still more than 100 people jailed for refusing army service.
Seven of the 10 were convicted of treason, and the others of attempted treason, according to the Interfax news agency.
Perm 35, located 1,000 miles east of Moscow in the Ural Mountains, is among the most notorious of the hundreds of Soviet prison camps that became known as the gulag.
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