UN rights panel demands facts on Sakharov exile

Western countries have won the first round in a battle to get the United Nations Human Rights Commission to take up the case of Andrei D. Sakharov, the banished Soviet dissident, over Communist objections. The 43-nation commission voted 15 to 13, with 12 abstentions, to consider Western proposals to send a telegram to Moscow demanding "full information on the measures taken against Andrei Sakharov."

Some third-world nations, together with the Western countries, then voted to take up the matter again later in the six-week session, keeping it before the commission.