Marchenko served his first prison sentence from 1960 to 1966. After his release, he wrote My Testimony, the first documentation of political camps and prisons in post-Stalinist times. The book was widely circulated in samizdat and translated into several languages. In 1968, he was sentenced to 2 years in camp for alleged passport violations and "anti-Soviet slander" after he wrote letters defending the Czechoslovak uprising.

His sentencing on March 31, 1975, to 4 years of internal exile was for alleged violation of the rules of administrative surveillance imposed following his release from prison. release from prison. A member of the Moscow Group from its inception, Marchenko followed its activities from his place of exile in Irkutsk oblast, and despite a local procurator's attempts to concoct a criminal case against him to prevent his return to the Moscow area, Marchenko was released from internal exile in September of 1978. Marchenko's 11 years in camps, prisons and exile have left him in very poor health. He is partially deaf, lame, and has had 2 operations for a chronic bleeding stomach ulcer.

Refused permission to emigrate since 1974 on the grounds that he knows state secrets, Meiman is a leading activist in the Jewish emigration movement. However, the only time in his career that he dealt with secret subjects was in the years 1948-55, when he worked on theoretical calculations for the Institute for Physical Problems of the USSR Academy of Sciences. As this work was done over twenty-five years ago, it has become obsolete.

From 1955 to 1975, Meiman worked as a senior scientist in the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics and was forced to "retire" when he submitted his application to emigrate. On January 14, 1977, Meiman joined the Helsinki Group.

When the new Soviet Constitution was announced in October of 1977, Meiman and others were placed under house arrest. Later he was no longer allowed to use a special polyclinic at the Academy of Sciences where, for more than 30 years, he had received treatment for tuberculosis and related lung ailments.

MNYUKH, Yuri Vladimirovich
Born October 13, 1926

Married
Physicist

A graduate of the Moscow Institute of Physical Engineering in 1973, Mnyukh was fired from his job for his intellectual independence at the Pushchino Institute of Biological Physics. The findings of his research were published in scientific journals, but credited to others, and he was denied work as a physicist.

After becoming a member of the Moscow Group on January 5, 1977, Mnyukh was constantly harassed; like the other members, his phone was disconnected, his apartment was searched and his papers were

confiscated.

On June 14, 1977, the Mnyukhs were allowed to emigrate from the Soviet Union.