Vol. 319 No. 7
asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the efforts, if any, the Government have undertaken to seek the release, in view of his recent illness, of Jiri Lederer, a 57-year-old Dutch Czechoslovac journalist serving a third term of imprisonment in a Czechoslovac prison who was arrested in 1977 after signing the Charter 77 Proclamation.
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asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the efforts, if any, the Government have undertaken to secure the release of Vyacheslav Bakhmin who was jailed in Moscow for circulating deliberate fabrications which defamed the Soviet system.
Mr. Jiri Lederer, imprisoned in October 1977, was released in January 1980 at the expiry of his sentence. I may say, however, that the Government continue to be concerned at the treatment of the Charter 77 Group by the Czechoslovac authorities; two statements on the Charter 77 trials were issued by the Foreign Ministers of the Nine during the Irish Presidency of the European Community.
With regard to the recent arrest of Mr. Vyacheslav Bakhmin in the Soviet Union, it is most disturbing that his arrest appears to have arisen out of his membership of the Moscow Investigating Committee on the Misuse of Psychiatry for Political Ends. Matters such as this will be among those for discussion in the review of implementation of the Helsinki Final Act which will take place at the forthcoming CSCE review conference in Madrid.
