(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
The Charge d’Affairs of the Soviet Embassy in Paris denied the veracity of the report of the Moscow Communist Youth organ, “Comsomolskaya Pravda” regarding anti-Jewish riots which occurred in Mohilev several months ago but which were suppressed until recently.
The denial was made as the result of an inquiry directed to the Embassy by the “International League Against Pogroms.” The Embassy official declared that the report was “absolutely devoid of any foundation.”
The report concerning the riots was carried not only by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency but also by the Associated Press. The cable was transmitted from Moscow by the correspondent of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, who based it on an extensive report published in the “Comsomolskaya Pravda” which devoted five columns to the matter after it had made an investigation on the spot. The Communist youth organ on that occasion reproached other Communist newspapers for suppressing the news and urged that the editor of the Communist newspaper in Velikoluki, from where the rioters came to Mohilev, who suppressed the report, be tried by a court.
The facts that the Communist youth organ, a government controlled paper published the report, and that the Jewish Telegraphic Agency cable was passed by the Communist censorship are additional substantiation of the report.
(The report concerned the action of sixty recruits in the Red Army, mainly Communist youths and drunken railway workers from Velikoluki, who, arriving in Mohilev to report fro military service, attempted an anti-Jewish riot in the streets of Mohilev.)
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
