On Thursday, May 18 at 19:40 a one-hour round table in direct air on problems of conscription has taken place on Moscow TV in the program "Perekrestok" (Crossroads) of Anelja Merkulova. There were three part takers, representing Defence Ministry, State Duma and anti-militarist movement: respectively general Vladimir BESPALOV, military commissioner of Moscow; Gennadij BATANOV, expert of State Duma, member of working group on conscientious objection bill; Nikolaj KHRAMOV, secretary of A.R.A. and one of the coordinators of Radical Party's activity in CIS.

As it concerned the question of alternative civilian service, general Bespalov advocated the point of view, that such kind of service - if it so necessary to introduce it - motivated only on religious grounds should be much longer than the military one and should be fulfilled as non-combatant service within the armed forces.

More or less agree with this position was Mr. Batanov, who stressed that in generally there is no need in any conscientious objection law: the government could simply issue regulations dealing the process of granting and completing the alternative service. He described shortly the conscientious objection bill, currently drafting by the State Duma's special working group, whose member he is: the draft provides exceeding of service length of alternative civilian service up to one and half times in comparison with the military one; the examination commission of military recruitment office, which could refuse granting the alternative service, if the reasons of conscience are bad motivated, etc.

Nikolaj Khramov defended the Radical Party's strong anti-militarist position, according to which the community service can be completed either in military or in civilian form and therefore their length must be equal and no examination commissions should be provided. He also underlined that the question of conscientious objection is not only a human rights issue but also a part of more wide problem of military reform, which means a total change of the concept of armed forces' role in Russian society and in particular, must provide a radical reduction of the army, renunciation of obligatory conscription and transition to the small and professional armed forces.