Six Persons On Hunger Strike In Belarus Now :: Charter'97 :: News

One after another citizens of Hrodna region join the protest against unfair courts rigged elections, lie in state-run mass media, closures of independent mass media. Today two young women, Svaytlana Khasanava and Natallya Pyan’kowskaya, a mother of a little kid, joined the three hunger-strikers in Vawkavysk and Paval Mazhejka, a journalist who went on hunger strike in Hrodna prison.

One works for a private firm, the other is unemployed. They are not friends. They know each other only by sight, but they are united by aversion to lies, which filled the TV screen when state-run TV channel showed an item about Vawkavysk entrepreneur Mikola Awtukhovich. These women, who know his work and him personally, could not bear unashamed cynicism, and on November 2 they announced a hunger strike against the lie of national television.

Meantime, editor-in-chief of “Mestnaya Gazeta” Andrei Shantarovich is on hunger strike for the 17th day, protesting against closure of his newspaper and falsifying elections results. As the journalist told, his state of health, according to doctors, is satisfactory for the current stage of hunger strike. His state certainly got worse, he had reduced by 10 kilograms, he often loses consciousness. Though he is not going to stop his protest.

On the 12th day of hunger strike unemployed Mikola Aksamit lost consciousness, and he was taken by ambulance. Now he is in Vawkavysk hospital. M. Aksamit went on hunger strike demanding revision of parliamentary elections returns. He produced proofs of falsifications, and he has witnesses. He demands investigation and penalizing of those who changed real results.

In the same town of Vawkavysk there is another hunger striker, pensioner Valyantsina Saldatava. Soon she will be 70. The woman is sure that the results of the elections in the town do not correspond to the officially announced results. She is set to be on hunger strike to the end. As said by her, as a disabled person of the second health group, she has nothing to lose.

According to recent information, an ambulance arrived to the special pre-trial detention center of October Internal Affairs department of Hrodna to the hunger-striker Paval Mazhejka. However, as GrodnoNEWS were informed by police department of October district, doctors are not seriously concerned by considerable worsening of health of the arrested Paval Mazhejka.