Tass asks Pentecostalists to seek exit via channels

Tass advised the Siberian Pentecostalists who have been living in the US Embassy for more than three years to return home and apply through normal channels if they want to leave the Soviet Union.

In the first semiofficial statement about the case, the Soviet news agency dismissed a 36-day hunger strike by one woman as a publicity stunt. The seven took refuge in the embassy in the summer of 1978 because of alleged religious persecution.