Editing Refusenik (section)

=== Crackdown on the refusenik activism and its growth ===
[[File:Jewish emigration from USSR Leningrad trial operation wedding.png|thumb|Jewish emigration from USSR, before and after the First Leningrad Trial]]
The affair was followed by a crackdown on the Jewish and dissident movement throughout the USSR.{{Citation needed|date=June 2011}} Activists were arrested, makeshift centers for studying the [[Hebrew language]] and [[Torah]] were closed, and more trials followed.<ref>{{cite web |last1=The Refusenik Project staff |title=Historical Overview |url=https://www.refusenikproject.org/history/#historical-overview |website=The Refusenik Project |access-date=30 December 2018}}</ref> At the same time, strong international condemnations caused the Soviet authorities to significantly increase the emigration quota. In the years 1960 through 1970, only about 3,000 Soviet Jews had (legally) emigrated from the USSR; after the trial, in the period from 1971 to 1980 347,100 people received a visa to leave the USSR, 245,951 of them were Jews.{{citation needed|date=October 2023}}

A leading proponent and spokesman for the refusenik rights during the mid-1970s was [[Natan Sharansky]].  Sharansky's involvement with the [[Moscow Helsinki Group]] helped to establish the struggle for emigration rights within the greater context of the [[human rights]] movement in the USSR.  His arrest on charges of espionage and treason and subsequent trial contributed to international support for the refusenik cause.{{Citation needed|date=November 2012}}