Soviet dissident Viktor Fainberg died on January 2 at the age of 92, his children reported the death. The funeral will take place in Israel on January 5. Viktor Fainberg took part in the “demonstration of the seven”, or action on August 25, 1968 against the entry of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia. Then the activists unfurled a banner on Red Square with the inscription “For your and our freedom.”
“It is with deep sorrow that the Fainberg family informs you of the death of Viktor Fainberg on January 2 at the age of 92. The funeral will take place in Israel at the Givat Brener cemetery on Thursday, January 5 at 15:00,” reads a message on the Facebook page of Viktor Fainberg (owned by Meta, recognized as an extremist and banned in Russia).
Viktor Fainberg studied philology at Leningrad University. He joined the dissident movement in 1968. After the August 1968 action, he, like other protesters, was arrested by the KGB. Subsequently, he was sent for compulsory treatment to the Leningrad psychiatric hospital, where he was from 1969 to 1973. There he went on a hunger strike.
After the Western press learned about the cruel detention of Viktor Fainberg in a psychiatric hospital, the writer was able to be released. In 1974 he emigrated to France. In exile, he initiated the creation of “SARA”-Campaign Against Psychiatric Abuse for Political Purposes to combat punitive psychiatry in the USSR.
