2 unknown Moldovan dissidents: Iakov Suslenski and Iosif Meșener

In the first imagination and Iosif Meshener, and, in the second, Iakov Suslenski.

Iosif Meshener (b. 1935, Galati, Romania – d. 2004, Beersheba, Israel) and Iakov Suslenski (b. 1929, Ananiev, Moldavian SSR, today in Ukraine – d. 2009, Jerusalem) were English teachers at a school in Bender (Tighina), Moldavian SSR. In August 1968, the 2 sent a letter to the Central Committee of the CPSU, in which they condemned the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. They also sent letters to the BBC and the UN denouncing Soviet censorship.

Meshener was dismissed a few months later, expelled from the CPSU and sent to work in a factory, but only for a short time. In 1970, both he and Suslenski were arrested. Under the criminal code of the Moldavian SSR, they were sentenced for anti-Soviet agitation and espionage for Israel: Suslenski for 7 years, Meshener for 6. The 2 were detained in the gulags in Mordovia, Perm-35, Perm-36 and in Vladimir prison.

After the release, the 2 emigrated to Israel. Suslenski was rehabilitated by the Soviet judicial system in 1989, and Meshener was rehabilitated by the Moldovan judicial system in 1992.