RADICALS SUPPORT KIRIENKO FOR MOSCOW MAYOR AND DISAPPROVE LUZHKOV'S INTIATIVE TO INTRODUCE IMPRISONMENT FOR DRUG CONSUMPTION AND DEATH PENALTY FOR DISTRIBUTING THE DRUGS

Moscow, September 18, 1999 - Today the Radical Assembly of Moscow and Moscow region took place in Sakharov Museum and Public Centre "Peace, progress and human rights". More than 80 participants took part in this Assembly - members of the Transnational Radical Party of the Antimilitarist Radical Association (ARA) and of Club Khramov - an Association for Libertarian Reforms, as well as the citizens who took an active part in the campaign of the TRP and the ARA "The third millennium without conscription slavery".

Alena Asaeva, co-ordinator of the campaign "The third millennium without conscription slavery" and vice Secretary of the ARA, conducted the Assembly. The introductory report was made by Nikolai Khramov, Secretary of the ARA and Russian co-ordinator of the Transnational Radical Party. Anna Zaitseva, Treasurer of the ARA, Kirill Shulika, vice President of the ARA General Council, Lyudmila Obraztsova, President of the ARA General Council and member of the board of directors of the Union of the Mothers of the Soldiers of Russia, Sergei Smirnov, leader of the public association "Right-defence net", Sergei Sorokin, president of the "Movement against the violence", Sergei Vorontsov, vice Secretary of the ARA and many others also took the floor.

The Assembly has adopted its final document in which it has confirmed the goal of the actual campaign "The third millennium without conscription slavery" - to collect by January 2000 50.000 signatures of Russian citizens under the petition addressed to the next State Duma and calling to abolish the universal military service and pass to remanning the Armed Forces on an entirely professional basis.

The Assembly has also expressed its concern for the next victim of explosions in Moscow are civil rights and freedoms; it has called all democratic and liberal forces to resist the swift transformation of Russia into a police state.

The assembly has also disapproved recent initiatives of Moscow mayor Yurii Luzhkov who is fighting for the introduction in the Criminal Code of a two-year imprisonment for ordinary drug consumption and of a death penalty for drug distribution.

Radicals thanked Sergei Kirienko for his political and moral support of the campaign "The third millennium without conscription slavery" (during the festival "Non-official Moscow", in the beginning of September, Kirienko has publicly signed the petition "The third millennium without conscription slavery"; he has also declared to the TV journalists that in a really free county there was no place for the compulsory military service). The Assembly supported Kirienko for Moscow mayor and invited "New Force" and "Moscow Alternative" movements, led by Kirienko, to collaborate.

During the Assembly one person joined the Radical Party in 1999, four people joined the Antimilitarist Radical Association, one person joined Club Khramov.

Appendix: Final document of the Radical Assembly of Moscow and Moscow Region