PRESS-RELEASE

MOSCOW, JANUARY 25, 2000

ALL-RUSSIAN EXTRAORDINARY HUMAN RIGHTS CONGRESS: A FIRM RESOLUTION HAS BEEN ADOPTED WITH AN ACTIVE PARTICIPANCE OF THE RADICALS, ON THE INITIATIVE OF THE RADICALS THE CONGRESS HAS SUPPORTED THE DEPENALIZATION OF DRUG CONSUMPTION AND OPPOSED THE STATE FINANCING OF THE PARTIES WHILE AMENDMENTS OF THE RADICALS CONCERNING THE LEGALIZATION OF CANNABIS AND THE RIGHT OF THE HEROIN ADDICTS TO MEDICAL ASSISTANCE HAVE BEEN REJECTED BY THE PRESIDIUM

Tonight in the Moscow hotel "Kosmos" the two-days All-Russian Extraordinary Human Rights Congress came to an end. Representatives of 250 human rights organizations from 64 regions of Russia, famous human rights activists, lawyers, deputies to the State Duma took part in the Congress.

The delegation of the Radical Party which included Alyona Asayeva, Anna Zaytseva, Alexey Ignatyev, Yaroslav Litvinenko, Andrey Rodionov, Nikolay Khramov and Gleb Edelev, took an active part in the work of the Congress. The radicals participated in the work of three from seven topical sections: "Defence of the constitutional system and rule of law", "Chechen war", "Civil control".

With an active participance of the radicals the Congress adopted the resolution on the Chechen war containing in particular: the demand addressed to the president Putin "to begin the negotiations without any preliminary conditions with the president of Chechen Republic Ichkeria A.Maskhadov whose legitimacy was recognized by the international community and by the government itself of Russia"; the demand to investigate immediately the war crimes committed in Chechnya and to bring the culprits to justice; the demand addressed to the Russian parliament to ratify the Statute of the International Criminal Court; the condemnation of the position of Russia's government in regard to the Resolution adopted by the UN Commission on Human Rights in 2000 that Russain authorities didn't recognize and refused to observe; the request addressed to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson "to initiate the institution of an international independent Commission for investigation of violations of human rights and n

orms of humanitarian law in Chechen Republic". The Congress also adopted the appeal to the Parliament Assembly of the Council of Europe in which is stated that in the conditions of the continuing war in Chechnya "giving the floor to the Russian delegation at the on-coming session of the PACE would signify that the Council of Europe recognizes its full impotence and reduces human right standards in Europe to their current level in Russia".

On the initiative of the radicals an amendment was introduced into the special resolution of the Congress drawn up by the section "Defence of the constitutional system and rule of law". The amendment contained the demand to the State Duma to make needed alterations in the criminal law which would provide removal of responsibility for possession and transportation of drugs for personal use.

On the initiative of the radicals into the special resolution calling the deputies to the State Duma to reject president Putin's draft of the federal law "On political parties" was also introduced a new paragraph condemning financing of parties from the federal budget provided by this draft.

At the same time the editorial commission of the section "Defence of the constitutional system and rule of law" rejected two other antiprohibitionist amendments to the resolution presented by the radicals. One of them called "to make alterations in the law allowing to differ approachs to cannabis and its derivatives, less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco, and really dangerous substances such as heroin", the other one demanded "to provide the right of the drug addict citizens to medical assistance including substitutive therapy, in particular, controlled distribution of heroin in medical institutions, following the example of Switzerland and other European countries". Both amendments weren't even submitted by the presidium to the debates in the section.

The moderators of another section - "Civil control" where were to be discussed in particular the "rights of ill persons" - also didn't allow the discussion on the problem of ensuring rights of heroin addicts to medical assistance. In the General resolution of the Congress in which all the dangers threatening human rights and freedoms are enumerated, the problem of illegal drugs isn't even mentioned.

In this connection the coordinator of Russian radicals Nikolay Khramov declared:

"One can pretend that there doesn't exist the problem of illegal drugs, that there doesn't exist criminal in the direct sense of word prohibitionist policy that every day produces mass human rights violations, paralyses justice, kills the idea itself of the Law, enriches narcomafias, corrupts power structures and criminalizes all the society. One can forget completely about the rights of two million drud addict citizens who are deprived by the law of their right to medical assistance, who are reduced by the government to clients of mafias and criminals, who are doomed to death after all. One can pretend that today in the country there aren't hundreds of thousands of political prisoners: hundreds of thousands of men and women, boys and girls who are in the prison cells on political motives, whose only "guilt" is that they use marijuana - a substance less dangerous than legal drugs, which was nevertheless prohibited by the politicians who decided to hand over the monopoly for its distribution to the organized

crime. One can prevent any attempt of the delegates of the Human Rights Congress to discuss the rights of these milllions. Nevertheless, alas, this short-sighted, ostrich position doesn't do credit to the Russian human rights community. Or, in any case, to the organizers of the Congress who in this case speak on behalf of this community".

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