OMRI Daily Digest - No. 1, Part I, 2 January 1997

The Collegium of the Moscow City Court reversed a sentence imposed against Muscovite Aleksandr Seregin by a lower court for draft dodging, Komsomolskaya pravda reported on 26 December. Seregin, a member of the Anti-military Radical Association, insisted on his right to perform alternative service, as guaranteed by the constitution adopted in December 1993. He was convicted on the grounds that there is currently no law defining alternative service (see OMRI Daily Digest, 25 October 1996). The decision of the Collegium sets a an example for courts that have usually postponed their decisions on conscious objectors. -- Nikolai Iakoubovski