From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 7/5/2005 10:33 AM
4.7.2005 13:00 MSK
Genrikh Altounyan died
Former political prisoner, member of the human rights movement in the USSR, Genrikh Ovanesovich Altounyan died on 30 June.

He was born in 1933. He worked as a radio engineer, belonged to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and had the rank of major. In 1969 Genrikh Altounyan together with a mathematician from Kiev, Leonid Pliushch, joined Moscow Action Group for the Human Rights. It was then that he was sentenced to 3 years in regular security penal colony for speaking out in defence of dissident general Pyotr Grigorenko and signing a collective letter to the UN. Genrikh Ovanesovich served his sentence in a penal colony in Krasnoyarsk Territory.

In 1981 Kharkov Regional Court sentenced him to seven years in prison and five years in exile for circulating anti-Soviet samizdat publications and works by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Between 1981 and 1987 Genrikh Ovanesovich served his sentence in Political Prison-36 in Perm and in another political prison in Chistopol. In early 1987 he was pardoned by the Supreme Council of the USSR among other 140 political prisoners.

In 1990s Altounyan became a deputy of the Supreme Rada of Ukraine and one of the founders of Memorial society in Kharkov. In late 2004 he took part in ‘orange revolution’ supporting leader of the Ukrainian opposition Victor Yushchenko at the rallies.


Alexander Podrabinek
He was an incredibly energetic and happy man. It is hard to believe that someone who went through the Soviet prisons and labour camps could still remain so open-hearted, have so much love for life and so much optimism. It is impossible to imagine him despondent or broken. At the age of seventy years he had many plans for the future, he worked, followed the news and took part in many political events. Nothing could defeat him, and only death ceased this plethora of energy.

Last time I saw him was at Kouroultai (congress) of the Crimean Tartars in Simferopol last year. He gave a welcome speech that was met with a round of rousing applause. Behind the scenes he embraced his friends and many considered it an honour to exchange just a few words with him. He joined me as I drove back to Moscow to be dropped off in Kharkov where he lived all his life. I stopped off at his home overnight. He treated me to home-made vodka, showed the house that he had built and spoke about his plans for the nearest future. He feared nothing and lived as if he was only twenty and had a whole life ahead of him.

But death took him away leaving us many photographs, memoirs, samizdat documents, copies of court sentences and fond memories of Genrikh Altounyan — the man with whom I was very fortunate to march side by side.


I. Zakharova. 20 Years On
The trial over Altounyan under presiding judge Karpoukhin began in late March 1981. Until then Genrikh had been held in pre-trial detention for three months. It was customary for trials over dissidents to be closed. Altounyan’s case as it was heard in the Regional Court, drew the attention of many people who previously had never known him. During this trial the KGB departed from their the usual rules. Not only Altounyan’s relatives were allowed to be present in the courtroom but also some of his friends. Access inside the court was only denied to Genrikh’s friends whom the security services knew to be hard-mouthed and active. One could assume that the trial was open for the same reason: KGB wished to intimidate the society to the maximum and conduct a spectacular show trial. But even then KGB experts failed in their actions… Altounyan’s high moral ground was so evident that the attempt to intimidate the society could have been considered a failure. The KGB realised it instantly and no more family members, except the closest relatives and witnesses, were any longer allowed to attend the trials that followed.

Altounyan was given maximum sentence allowed by Article 70, Part 1 of the Criminal Code, namely — 7 years in labour camps with subsequent five-year exile. He served a little more than six years and was released a year after Gorbachyov declared Perestroika.


Altounyan’s friends recall:
"On 20 June 1969 a group of officials turned up to search his flat. They knocked: ‘Altounyan, open the door!’ Silence. ‘Altounyan, we know you’re in!’ No response. ‘Altounyan, we’ll break the door!’ No result. Some twenty minutes later the door opened — thick smoke inside and Altounyan on the threshold, smiling. ‘I noticed you in the street. I just had some unnecessary papers here. It took a while before I burned them. And now come in, my dear, and search me!’"


Translated by Olga Sharp
http://www.prima-news.ru/eng/news/articles/2005/7/4/32838.html