Placing to psychiatric hospital for demand of alternative service

• 2.05.2012, 12:19

Draft-age Andrei Charnavusau from the town of Lifa applied to the campaign for alternative civil service (ACS).

The young man sent an appeal a week ago to the draft commission demanding to replace compulsory military service by alternative service in accordance with article 57 of the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus, the press service of the ACS campaign reports.

Instead of considering the appeal, doctors from the military enlistment office of Lida sent the draftee to Hrodna for an additional medical examination.

Andrei arrived in Hrodna and learned he would be taken to a psychiatric hospital for examination.

Doctors say they want to compare his views with the norms of mental health. Andrei is at the hospital admission office waiting for admission procedures to be finished.

The ACS campaign says discrimination of draftees insisting on alternative service is inadmissible and calls on the Minister of Defence Yury Zhadobin to stop amoral actions in relations to the people consciously refusing to undergo military service.