DECLARATION OF GORSHKOV, KUROCHKIN AND OTHERS ABOUT COLLECTIVE CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION: PRESS CONFERENCE OF ANTI-MILITARIST RADICAL ASSOCIATION

PRESS RELEASE

Moscow, July 7, 1995

On July 11 in Moscow, in Russian American Press & Information Center (Hlebnyj per. 2/3, western wing) a press conference of the Anti-militarist Radical Association (A.R.A.) take place. The press conference is to support the collective conscientious objection undertaken by a group of young people who aim to the soonest adoption of the law on alternative civilian service.

"We conscientiously risk to be criminally persecuted and sentenced. Our action is not only an individual ethical, philosophical or religious choice, but a decisive collective action in the spirit of Ghandi-style non-violence directed to the soonest adoption of the law on alternative civilian service", write the authors of the collective declaration of conscientious objection (Nikolaj Gorshkov, Jurij Kurochkin, Oleg Astashkin, Maksim Kostjurin, Sergej Kirilin and others).

In the press conference will take part:

- Nikolaj KHRAMOV, secretary of A.R.A.;

- Sergej SOROKIN, member of A.R.A. and leader of Movement Against Violence;

- Valerij BORSCEV, member of Russian State Duma ("Jabloko" group) and member of the Provisional Coordination Council of A.R.A.;

- Valentina MELNIKOVA, member of the Provisional Coordination Council of A.R.A. and press secretary of Russian Committee of Soldiers' Mothers;

- Nikolaj GORSHKOV, conscientious objector;

- Jurij KUROCHKIN, conscientious objector.

The press conference begins at 12:00.

For more information:

A.R.A.

Trubnaja ul. 25-2-49, 103051 Moscow

tel./fax (095) 923-9127