(3 of 3)
One highly publicized KGB responsibility is to rid the country of dissenters. Of the 2 million people currently imprisoned in the Soviet penal system, about 10,000 are so-called prisoners of conscience, who have been jailed for their religious, intellectual or political beliefs. In the past year the KGB has employed increasingly sophisticated methods to discredit dissidents; Jewish activists have been charged with speculation and other economic crimes in order to whip up local anti-Semitic feelings.
In the Ukraine, 36 human rights activists have been convicted since 1976 on charges ranging from hooliganism to sexual offenses. In Kiev, both Jewish and Ukrainian activists have been severely beaten by KGB agents. In one celebrated case last year, witnesses say they saw two men force a popular Ukrainian nationalist composer, Volodymyr Ivasiuk, 31, into a KGB car. Three weeks later his body was found hanging from a tree; his eyes had been gouged out. Such acts of brutality—still rare but apparently on the increase—are strictly illegal. The KGB, however, remains capable of acting as a law unto itself.