Autukhovich, on hunger strike for almost 3 months, going to fight to the finish
- 13.07.2009, 11:02
Lawyer Pavel Sapelka visited the arrested entrepreneur in the Minsk pre-trial detention center.
The lawyer told in an interview to Radio Svaboda that Mikalai Autukhovich lost more than 30 kilograms but he wasn’t going to stop his hunger strike.
“The meeting lasted more than an hour,” Pavel Sapelka says. “Autukhovich is very weak, he’s lost more than 30 kilograms, he nearly faints often. But he didn’t say he planned to stop his hunger strike next week. I don’t know why the doctor from prison hospital told that. The doctor doesn’t have full information about Autukhovich’s health condition. Autukhovich didn’t withdraw his demands to send his case to court or to release him on his own recognizance. He is a very courage man. But my view is that the strike should be stopped. As a lawyer I need him to be in normal physical condition when he will learn the case and stand a trial.”
Lawyer Pavel Sapelka said the status of Autukhovich as the accused of the arson hadn’t been changed. What to the information that Autukhovich in involved in another case of terrorism, the lawyer told he had been warned again about “non-disclosure of the secret of investigation.”
Leaders of entrepreneurs from Vaukavysk Mikalai Autukhovich, Yury Lyavonau, and Uladzimir Asipenka were detained on February 8, 2009, charged with arson. Human rights activists consider the arrested to be political prisoners drawing attention to the fact that Autukhovich and Lyavonau were convicted before and recognized prisoners of conscience by the international community.
Political prisoner Mikalai Autukhovich has been on hunger strike in the Minsk pre-trial detention center since April 16. He demands either to send the case to court as soon as possible or to change the measure of restraint for him and other persons involved in the same criminal case from custody to release on their own recognizance. The detained has lost 30 kilograms of weight for this period. He had become very weak and thin. He is given drips every day.
