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CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION: ROMAN BAZELCHUK IS RELEASED, BUT THE VERDICT OF GUILTY IS CONFIRMED

Today Roman Bazelchuk was released from the Rostov region prison by amnisty in view of the anniversary of the Victory. Roman Bazelchuk is an officer in reserve, this year, on May 18 Zverev City Court of the Rostov region sentenced him to seven months of imprisonment for conscientious objection according to Art. 328.1 of the Russian Criminal Code ("evading the military service").

During today's examination of the cassation appeal of Bazelchuk by the court collegium for the criminal cases of the Rostov Regional Court (judges Romensky, Sivak and Kartavik) the public prosecutor Koblyeva asked to confirm the verdict of the Zverev City Court and to apply in respect of Roman Bazelchuk the law on amnisty. The defence directed attention of the collegium at the unlawfulness of the draft of Bazelchuk (he was drafted as an officer in reserve six months before the graduation and eight months before the conferment of the officer rank) and asked to repeal on that ground the verdict of the Zverev City Court and to acquit the accused. Nevertheless, the court collegium for the criminal cases of the Rostov Regional Court decided today to confirm the verdict of the Zverev City Court and to reject the cassation appeals of the defense, applying at the same time the law on amnisty and releasing Roman Bazelchuk from serving his sentence. Roman Bazelchuk, according to his father Yevgeny Bazelchuk, is firmly

resolved to strive for justice and the repeal of the verdict for the lack of corpus delicti.

DECLARATION OF THE ARA SECRETARY NIKOLAY KHRAMOV

"The court lawlessness in a Rostov manner which was demonstrated to us today, ranks with an open, crying injustice which was taking place for five months in Kaluga - and is taking place till now: despite the fact that Dmitry Neverovsky is released after 146 days in the Kaluga prison, the criminal case concerning the accusation of our comrade of "evading the military service" isn't closed up to now.

Today's decision of the Rostov Regional Court is unprecedented and utterly dangerous: it is the first case in the post-perestroyka's Russia when a verdict to a conscientious objector involving the imprisonment comes into force. Yes, it is a fact that Roman Bazelchuk is free, but this doesn't change the point: for the first time in our country - since the Constitution guarantees to the citizens the right to conscientious objection - the court of the second instance has established that a man seeking to realize his constitutional right not to perform the military service, deserves the imprisonment.

Today's Rostov decision as well as the case of Dmitry Neverovsky points out not only the increasing influence of the military in the Putin's Russia but the intention, in the conditions of the bloody criminal Chechen war, to intimidate the draftees by the illegal but very real repression.

The cases of anticonstitutional and illegal persecution of the conscientious objectors become more frequent and demonstrate - not so transparently but not less convincingly than such an impertinent challenge to the Russian and international public opinion as the arrest of Vladimir Gusinsky and other persecutions of the independent press - a serious disease which affected not only the prosecutors who under the sensitive guidance of inaccessible Ustinov proved their selfless servility, but also the whole Russian justice system which is ready to serve to the colonels and the latter-day Politbureau, trampling down the Constitution.

Today as never before the time has come when all the antagonists of the dictature and the militarism should act. Our silence and passivity can mean only one thing: the regime will not limit itself to the arrests of the "oligarchs", big politicians and proprietors of the independent mass-media. It will busy itself with everyone who would dare to display to a least degree the lack of the "patriotism". And we will know about the Chechen war not more than the Brezhnev's "ministry of truth" allowed to know about Afganistan".

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