The World - News from Jan. 22, 1989

Soviet activist Andrei D. Sakharov, citing recent arrests in Armenia, said repression has resumed in the Soviet Union, according to an interview in U.S. News & World Report. He objected to the arrest of 12 members of the Karabakh Committee, a dissident group in Armenia, in December and earlier this month. “These arrests were absolutely unnecessary,” Sakharov said. “The committee had been providing invaluable aid and assistance” following the Dec. 7 earthquake in Armenia. He said the arrests have led to a “return of prisoners of conscience” in the Soviet Union. As result, he said, plans for a human rights conference to be held in Moscow in 1991 should be suspended.