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While many categories of prisoners of conscience have remained numerically constant, the numbers of adopted Lithuanian and Armenian prisoners have increased considerably. A major development (and a welcome one) in the opposite direction occurred in the autumn of 1974 when Soviet authorities re- vealed that 60 dissident Baptist prisoners, most of them AI adoptees, had been released before the expiry of their sentences. AI has since learned the names of a number of these Baptists.
However, a number of other dissident Baptists have been arrested or tried since the autumn of 1974, the best known being Pastor Georgy Vins, who was senten- ced in January 1975 to 5 years' imprisonment, followed by 5 years' internal exile. In October 1974 seven Baptists were arrested in Latvia for operating a clandestine printing press which produced Bibles and other religious literature, and a number of other dissident Baptists have been imprisoned in connection with their religious activities.
AI took formal action to help a number of prisoners arrested within the past year. Unsuccessful attempts were made to send observers to the trials of Georgy Vins (January 1975) and Vladimir Maramzin (February 1975). In Decem- ber 1974 Secretary General Martin Ennals cabled R. A. Rudenko, Procurator General of the USSR, urging a fair trial for Mikhail Shtern, a Jewish doctor accused of certain kinds of malpractice after members of his family had requested permission to emigrate.
National sections took part in urgent action campaigns on behalf of a number of prisoners, including Georgy Vins, Vladimir Maramzin, Valentyn Moroz, Leonid Plyushch, Anatoly Marchenko and two detained members of AI's Moscow group, Sergei Kovalyov and Andrei Tverdokhlebov (see below).
In September 1974, the International Executive Committee decided to recog- nize the formation of an AI group in Moscow-the first-ever AI adoption group in the USSR. The group was assigned adoption cases from Spain, Yugoslavia and Sri Lanka. However its incoming AI mail was stopped almost from the group's inception.
In November and December 1974 several group members were subject to searches, and at the end of 1974 group member Sergei Kovalyov was arrested, os- tensibly in connection with his domestic human rights activity rather than as a result of his AI work. In April 1975 two other members, Andrei Tverdokhlebov and Mykola Rudenko, were arrested. Mr Rudenko was later released provision- ally, but Mr Tverdokhlebov has been formally charged with “disseminating fab- rications known to be false which defame the Soviet state and social system".
Numerous reports emanating from the USSR indicate that over the past five years, prison and colony conditions have become more severe, particularly for political prisoners. Discipline has become more rigorous and punishments more arbitrary. As before, the life of Soviet prisoners is characterized by chronic mal- nutrition, medical neglect and overwork. One adopted prisoners, the Buddhist scholar Bidya Dandaron, died on October 1974, apparently as a consequence of mistreatment and medical neglect.
Hunger striking has become a widespread form of protest by Soviet prisoners. Some hunger strikes are carried out by lone individuals, Valentyn Moroz being the most prominent example. Mr Moroz fasted for almost five months in an
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