Correspondents' Correspondence

...In an end-of-the-year report to the Sejm, he stated: "The investigation conducted by the Prosecutor-General's office proved the baselessness of these charges against the police...

...Greeks call each other in pay phones and worry they are being watohed...

...The six that have so far appeared contain what the Committee believes are the actual facts of the June 25 protests, reports of police behavior toward the strikers, including some alleged cases of brutality, and a running record of workers' trials...

...Subsequently, individual members were detained and harassed...

...and 88-year-old economist Edward Lipinski, a "Marxist since 1906" who now proclaims strongly Eurocommunist views...

...A favorite method, they said, was the "health path," a gauntlet they were forced to run through...

...Athens also wants Istanbul Greeks to retain Turkish citizenship to protect their rights and any possible future claims to compensation...

...And press campaigns denounced the organization as an agent of Zionism and Western Imperialism...

...In mid-November, the Committee formally called upon the Sejm—the Polish parliamentto create an official board to investigate the brutality charges...

...As soon as the speech became known, an additional 172 intellectuals joined in the plea for a "commission to investigate the abuses and tortures the whole country is talking about...

...Some people are afraid to speak Greek, some are afraid to speak at all...

...In addition, West German writer Heinrich Boll contributed $2,500 in royalties from the Polish editions of his works, and Swiss novelist Max Frisch donated $4,000...

...But he admitted that "a stranger walking into the store and hearing us speaking Greek would probably walk out...

...What differentiates the Committee from earlier broad-based dissident organizations is its single goal: total amnesty for the workers jailed because of their protests against the proposed food price hikes announced last June...

...We are actually more of a civil rights movement...

...Signs with Greek lettering (or Armenian or Hebrew, for that matter) have completely disappeared...

...An old newspaper man, tears in his eyes, seemed to best sum up the fear and frustration: "The history of our people for 500 years has been one of sorrow and trouble...

...If the community dwindles to nothing the Turks may try to expel the Patriarch, claiming that he has no local souls to tend...

...Of those 100,000 Greeks only about 15,000 remain, and they no longer form the prosperous community they did as late as 20 years ago, when they controlled the major shopping street in town and dominated the professions...

...Although the Greeks, often the Sultan's ambassadors and physicians, ruled this city for thousands of years, none of their taver-nas or cafeneions and just one small newspaper still exist...

...Cokie Roberts...

...Nevertheless, they say they live in constant fear...

...Occasionally the dangers are more tangible—especially when tempers run high about Cyprus...

...Although careful not to identify itself too closely with what the government considers a dissident group, the Church has advocated all of the Committee's demands...

...Shortly after its founding in late September, the Committee started issuing communiques...

...prominent novelist Jerzy Andrzejewski, an ex-Commu-nist...

...To date, about $75,000 has gone to pay the legal costs at over 400 members, and some 236 families have received assistance...

...Undeterred, the Committee intensified its demand for an investigation into the alleged violence against the strikers, several of whom have recently testified that they were beaten by the police...

...Only a single-issue coalition could bring together figures as diverse as historian and former radical student leader Jacek Kuron...

...By keeping the community in Istanbul alive Athens hopes to protect the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Churches a position traditionally occupied by the Greek Orthodox Bishop of "Constantinople and New Rome...

...Warsaw has prudently avoided a direct confrontation with the Church, but has taken increasingly strong steps against the Committee...

...There were several house searches, netting, among other things, $6,000 of the Committee's funds...

...Moreover, following the intellectuals' lead, the Church has called for offerings from the faithful to support the unemployed strikers...

...The communiques also provide information on the progress of the Committee's aid programs, and offer a rough idea of the group's financial assets and supporters...

...Considering the variety of political views its 20 members espouse, the Committee would have to limit its emphasis to survive...

...Initially, countermeasures were restricted to issuing a series of fraudulent communiques, ending with the patently unbelievable announcement that the Committee had completed its work and decided to disband...

...And he, like everybody else, sees no future in Istanbul for himself or his children...

...Every time tensions between Greece and Turkey increase—almost always over Cyprus?another few thousand Greeks leave Istanbul...

...Shortly before Christmas, a group of 28 professorsmost of them not active dissidents—added a third voice to this call...

...This ploy is rather transparent, however, especially given the background of recent Church-state tensions...

...A reply by Prosecutor-General Lucjan Czubinski only intensified the conflict...

...The first mass exodus began in 1955 after Turkish mobs, inspired by the government, ransacked Greek stores and churches and killed two priests...

...Still, the Greeks (or "Rums," for Romans, as they are locally known) are counting the days until they can leave: "The people here have one foot in Istanbul and one foot in Athens," said a Greek...

...Dissent in Poland Munich—The Polish intellectuals' Committee for the Defense of the Workers represents an important shift in the tactics of Eastern European dissent, as well as a serious dilemma for the Warsaw government...

...Greeks, quick to show visitors pictures of the devastation, are almost gleeful at this example of Turkish barbarism...

...Cardinal Wyszynski, the Polish primate, seconded this demand in a sermon in early December...

...To this end, it has begun collecting money to provide financial, legal and medical aid for the workers and their families, and publicizing the strikes and their suppression...

...only those too old to leave do not speak of emigration within the next five years...

...The room for compromise that existed in the fall has shrunk to almost nothing...

...In keeping with its stress on merely seeking to insure enforcement of the law, the Committee denies any political ambitions...

...We are not some sort of opposition," one member explained...

...In 1923 Greece and Turkey, officially deciding they could not live together, exchanged populations?except for about 100,000 Turks in Thrace and the same number of Greeks in Istanbul, who were supposed to have certain rights and protection under the Treaty of Lausanne...

...The Greek government is not anxious to have them, though, and makes it difficult for families to immigrate...

...Even though some observers see the authorities as hoping to defuse the issue by softening their reactions to the Committee's activities, they will eventually be compelled to confront the question of amnesty for the persecuted workers.Tom Heneghan Fear in Instanbul Istanbul—This city has become what it claims to have been for the last 500 years—Turkish...

...Now, however, political and economic pressures are forcing the Greeks to abandon Istanbul to its ever-growing number of Turkish inhabitants...

...These recent developments have brought the unrest in Poland to a crossroads...

...One stated that by Christmas, about $100,000 had come in from all parts of Poland...

...He went on to declare that letters from workers claiming they had been beaten usually turned out to be forgeries, and that almost half of their authors had criminal records...

...The post might then devolve on the Bishop of Moscow, who stands second in the Orthodox hierarchy...

...Several bank accounts have been opened in Western Europe in the Committee's name, and the European Trade Union Confederation has privately requested its member unions (one of which is the Italian Communist union CGIL) to aid the cause...

...Even the new name, Istanbul, was a corruption of the Greek stin poli, "to the city...

...The authorities became earnest in November, though, when a meeting of 14 Committee members was broken up and all were held for questioning...

...the stores are either gone or bear Turkish names...

...As in the past, for instance, they own several of the jewelry shops in the Grand Bazaar and on the big commercial street, Istiklal...

...Today the once-famous Greek hospital struggles to survive...

...When the Ottomans wrested what was then Constantinople from the Byzantine Empire they made surface changes that gave it an Eastern flavor, but left the culture and commerce in the hands of non-Turks, primarily the Greeks, Armenians and Jews...

...some who attended workers' trials were roughed up or pelted with eggs...

...These collections are being taken up on the local level, to avoid the impression that the Church is waging a nationwide campaign against the government...

...Harassment in the form of high taxes or passport troubles is a daily occurrence...

...Interestingly, indirect support has come from the Polish Catholic Church...

...Jan Zieja, a Roman Catholic priest...

...I asked one jeweler if his business had suffered because he was Greek...

...Meanwhile, many of them continue to fill their usual roles in society...

...He replied, "There are no Turkish stores like this...