http://www.stetson.edu/~psteeves/relnews/0111b.html#18
(Pskov: A city of west-central Russia south-southwest of St. Petersburg)
ARMY DEFERMENT FOR THE SAKE OF PRAYER
Rossiiskaia gazeta, 16 November 2001
An unprecedented judicial investigation whose chief figures are an
eighteen-year-old draftee and the leadership of the city military committee began in Pskov province. The occasion for the possible battles on the judicial field is a recent decision made by a local district court in the city of Krasnye Strugi granting deferment from army service to a young believer.
As we were told at the city military committee, eighteen-year-old Viacheslav Kisliuk, over whom judicial passions have been ignited, is a "hereditary" member of the sect of Jehovah's Witnesses. His parents lead the city's division of the sect and it was they who decided to protest the action of the military committee in the district court, appealing to their convictions that do not permit their son to bear arms. The judges, apparently deciding not to tangle with religious fanatics, granted the young man deferment for the time being, "until a mechanism for alternative service has been created." The issue is the absence for now of a law which would establish the nature and length of service for "alternative servicemen." The decision of the court has upset the local military command; now young people will
begin actively turning to the sectarians in order thereby to avoid the army.
(tr. by PDS, posted 21 November 2001)
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