Brussels-Moscow, May 24, 1998

Dear < ...>,

at present the State Duma is preparing the second reading of the Federal Alternative Civilian Service Law. Probably this is the most suffered draft law that the contemporary Russian parliamentarianism has ever known: its first reading took place as long ago as November 1994.

In the meantime the lack of such a law created in Russia an extremely intricated and contradictory situation in the field of conscientious objection, a right universally recognised by the UN and the Council of Europe (the Russian Federation is a member of the both international bodies); the present day situation is intricated and contradictory both for the state and for its citizens who fight for the right to replace the military service by the alternative civilian service.

The Article 59.3 of the Russian Constitution guarantees to every citizen the right to conscientious objection and the right to the alternative civilian service. However, in the majority of cases the enlistment commissions ignore the applications of conscientious objectors for the alternative civilian service and decide to call them up. Then the conscripts contest these decisions at the general jurisdiction courts and independently of the verdict of the court these citizens are sent neither to the military service (because in this situation there are no legal grounds to bring an action against them) nor for the alternative civilian service (because of the lack of the alternative civilian service law). Often these citizens become victims of the evident illegality of the enlistment commissions that violate the Russian Constitution and the Military Obligation and Military Service Federal law and literally force the conscientious objectors to go the Army.

The lack of the Alternative Civilian Service Law is also a serious violation of obligations that Russia took on when it entered the Council of Europe.

For many years the Antimilitarist Radical Association (ARA) together with the Transnational Radical Party (an international NGO with the 1 category consultative status at the UN) fight for the soonest adoption of a liberal alternative civilian service law in Russia.

In 1995 we have collected nearly 10.000 signatures under the petition to the State Duma. Last year by our initiative thousands of 700 citizens sent by post their appeals to the Chairman of the State Duma Gennadij Seleznjov asking him to adopt this law as soon as possible.

In 1997, when it was evident that the lower chamber of the Russian Parliament was not able to discuss this problem of vital importance for thousands of Russians, the ARA and the Radical Party launched the so-called Civil obedience campaign. The objective of this campaign is to increase drastically the number of official applications for the alternative civilian service, presented by the citizens according to the Russian Constitution.

According to the information of the General Staff, thanks to our campaign only during the autumn conscription campaign '97, 1.061 people for the first time applied for the alternative civilian service. Nobody of them was called up (during the spring enlistment campaign '97 there were only 675 applicants).

It seems that now the discussion of the Alternative Civilian Service law at the State Duma has passed the critical point. So, it is very important to guarantee the correspondence of the draft law both to the Constitution and to the international legal regulations in the field of conscientious objection and not to allow to introduce in the text of the law certain statements that could annul the sense of this socially important law. Namely:

- the future alternative service must be exclusively civilian (the work in the social field or medical assistance);

- the terms of the alternative civilian service must not be a punishment as compared to the terms of the levy military service;

- the application for the alternative civilian service may be grounded on any kind of convictions, as stated in the Russian Constitution, and not only on the fact that the applicant belongs to certain confessions.

It is You who will decide at a plenary meeting what kind of an Alternative Civilian Service law we will have. We hope that Your vote will reflect Your own conscious position and will not follow an imposed opinion of somebody else or be a result of the lack of information or just of indifference.

Best regards,

Olivier DUPUIS Nikolaj KHRAMOV

(Member of the European Parliament, (Secretary of the

Secretary of the Antimilitarist Radical

Transnational Radical Party) Association)