Moscow, March 19, 2000

Today, in Moscow, on Pushkin square there was a demonstration against the war in Chechnya, organized by the Committee for Anti-War Actions. The committee unites a number of Russian NGOs, including the Anti-Militarist Radical Association and Radical Party.

Several hundreds of people participated in the anti-war demonstration on Pushkin square. Among the speakers there were: Ida Kuklina (a representative of the Russian Union of Committees of Soldiers's Mothers), Tatiana Kotlyar (a deputy of the Obninsk City Council, Dmitry Neverovsky's mother), Vsevolod Lukhovitsky (Youth Human Rights Center), Olga Miryasova (Anarchist Anti-War Movement), Nikolai Khramov (ARA Secretary), Anatoly Shabad (a former deputy of Russian State Duma, a representative of the "Democratic Russia" movement), Terasava (Japanese Buddhist Order "Nippojan Mehoji"), Larisa Bogoraz (a famous veteran of the human rights movement in USSR), and others.

The activists of Radical Party and Anti-Militarist Radical Association organized tables for collection of signatures, where 227 signatures under the petition against the war in Chechnya, 143 signatures under the petition "The third millenium without conscription slavery", to abolish the military draft and introduce a professional army, 80 signatures under a petition to the Prosecutor-General's office, demanding freedom and justice for Dmitry Neverovsky (who refused to serve in the army on the ground of his beliefs and in protest against the war in Chechnya) were collected during the hour and a half that the demonstration lasted. Also, 3980 rubles of donations for anti-war and anti-militarist activities were collected.

The next action of Russian radicals against the war in Chechnya will take place in Moscow on March 24, from 5pm to 7tpm, on Kho Shi Ming square near the exit from the subway station "Akademicheskaya". It will be a picket for collection of signatures against the war in Chechnya.