STATE FINANCING OF PARTIES: RADICALS BEGAN TO COLLECT SIGNATURES UNDER THE PETITION TO THE DEPUTIES TO THE STATE DUMA WHO ON JANUARY 25 WILL EXAMINE THE DRAFT OF THE LAW ON PARTIES
PRESS-RELEASE
MOSCOW, JANUARY 21, 2000
On Thursday, January 25, the State Duma will examine at first reading the draft of the federal law "On political parties" introduced by the President that stipulates, besides many other antiliberal and antidemocratic provisions, the direct state financing of the political parties from the federal budget.
Several days ago Russian members of the Radical Party began to collect signatures under the petition to the members of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation against the state financing of the parties. The first signatures under the petition:
- Sergey YUSHENKOV, deputy to the State Duma (faction "Union of the Right Forces")
- Alexandr PODRABINEK, journalist, editor-in-chief of the human rights weekly "Express-Khronika"
- Mark DEYCH, columnist of the newspaper "Moskovsky Komsomolets"
- Valeria NOVODVORSKAYA, leader of the Democratic Union
- Alexey SIMONOV, president of the Foundation for the Defence of Glasnost
- Nikolay KHRAMOV, Russian coordinator of the Radical Party
- Yuly RYBAKOV, deputy to the State Duma (faction URF)
- Lyudmila ALEXEYEVA, chairperson of the Moscow Helsinki Group
- Valery BORSHCHOV, human rights activist, former deputy to the State Duma
- Sergey SMIRNOV, coordinator of the "Human Rights Network"
- Ida KUKLINA, secretary of the Union of committees of soldiers' mothers of Russia
- Sergey GRIGORYANTS, chairman of the Public Foundation "Glasnost"
- Konstantin BOROVOY, editor-in-chief of the magazin "America", former deputy to the State Duma
- Georgy DZHIBLADZE, president of the Center for development of democracy and human rights
- Dmitry KARABCHIYEVSKY, painter
- Lev LEVINSON, expert of the Human Rights Institute.
ENCLOSED:
the text of the petition against the state financing of the parties
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
tel. (095) 208-1805, (902) 675-6379
www.radicalparty.org
