Yaroslavl - Moscow, August 18, 1999.

Yesterday, on August 17, regional presentation of the petition campaign "The third millennium without conscription slavery", carried out by the Radical Party and the Antimilitarist Radical Association (ARA), took place in Yaroslavl, in Znamenskaya tower.

About 30 participants were present at the meeting, including Yurii Morkovin, President of the Human Rights Commission by the Governor of Yaroslavl region; Galina Marchenko, President of the Yaroslavl Regional Council of Parents of Military men; Nikolai Khramov, Secretary of the ARA and Russian Co-ordinator of the Radical Party; Alla Asaeva, Vice Secretary of the ARA. The mass media were represented by a correspondent of Severnyi Krai newspaper and by journalists of Novostina news programme of the regional television channel Tsentr TV.

At the meeting the regional initiative group was established. It will carry out the petition campaign "The third millennium without conscription slavery" in Yaroslavl region. This group includes 26 militants from Yaroslavl, Rybinsk and Yaroslavl region. The object of the initiative group is to collect among the inhabitants of Yaroslavl and its region by January 2000 5.000 signatures under the petition of the Radical Party and the ARA, addressed to the next State Duma, appealing to abolish the compulsory military service and to pass to an entirely professional voluntary basis of remanning the Russian Armed Forces.