Salient Reporter

Kelburn's Amnesty International group (which meets monthly at Victoria University) is at present working for the relief of three "Prisoners of Conscience."

They are people who are physically restrained from preaching or practising beliefs which they honestly hold and which do not advocate violence.

One of these. Vladimir Bykovsky, has been directly involved with the exiled Russian writer. Valeri Tarsis who, in his book "Ward 7," has written of the treatment meted out to critics of the Soviet regime in Russia.

Bykovsky has been committed to a mental institution, as was Tarsis, for smuggling literary works to publishers in the West and for demonstrating on behalf of the two writers Sinyavilky and Daniel, who were recently sentenced to hard labour in a much publicised "trial" in Moscow.

By pronouncing Bykovsky "insane" the authorities have ensured that he will not need to be brought to trial and that he may be detained for as long as they consider necessary. Tarsis was released as the result of publicity and outcry in countries outside the USSR, and Amnesty International hopes to brine about Bykovsky's release in the some manner.