1980: an overview

Dissidents

A crackdown on Ukrainian dissidents, particularly Helsinki monitors, continued with renewed virulence in 1980, with numerous arrests, re-arrests and trials. In an attempt to thoroughly decimate the human-rights movement before the Moscow Olympics and the opening of the Madrid Conference, Soviet authorities began charging many dissidents on criminal rather than overtly political charges.

Among Helsinki monitors sentenced on non-political charges were Vyacheslav Chornovil (attempted rape), Yaroslav Lesiv (drug possession), Vasyl Lisovy (parasitism) and Mykola Horbal (attempted rape).

Helsinki monitors sentenced or arrested for political "crimes" included Petro and Vasyl Sichko, Zynoviy Krasivsky, Vitalyi Kalynychenko, Olha Heyko, Vasyl Stus, Oksana Meshko and Ivan Sokulsky. Among other dissidents so charged were Bohdan Chuiko, Vasyl Barladianu, Hryhoriy Prykhodko and Hanna Mykhailenko. Svitliana Kyrychenko, a Helsinki monitor and wife of imprisoned dissident Yuriy Badzio received an administrative sanction - three months' extra labor.

Only two of the 37 Ukrainian Helsinki group members remain free - Ivan Kandyba, and Stefania Shabatura, who is under constant surveillance.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, December 28, 1980, No. 31, Vol. LXXXVII

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