Correctional facility authorities ignored Rubtsou’s hunger strike

The political prisoner continues his hunger strike in the correctional labour facility #7 in the village of Kuplin.

The public activist from Homel Yury Rubtsou, who is serving his term of the restriction of freedom in the correctional facility #7 in the village of Kuplin, Pruzhany district for alleged insult of a judge, went on an indefinite hunger strike on January 22.

The authorities of the correctional facility do not impose difficulties for his hunger strike so far, Radio Svaboda informs.

“I am on the hunger strike for the second day. I was told: “Do as you wish. If you are taken bad, an emergency is to be called in by us.” Today the governor of the correctional facility was summoned to Minsk. I do not know whether it is connected to the hunger strike or not,” Yury Rubtsou said.

At the moment Rubtsou is drinking water only. He believes that the “dry” hunger strike could cause serious damage to his health.

“I understand that the questions related to my hunger strike could not be solved quickly. That is why there is no point in announcing a waterless hunger strike. I would not like to risk my health,” he said.

When Yury Rubtsou went on the hungere strike, his demands were to offer him a job with the country's average salary, which is declared to be equivalent to $600, and to give opposition daily an hour of air time on the national TV to tell citizens about alternative views on the economic and political situation in the country.

In October 2014, judge of Minsk's Tsentralny district court Natallia Vaitsekhovich sentenced Yury Rubtsou to 1.5 in an open-type correctional facility for insulting judge Kiryl Palulekh, who had heard the activist's case in spring. Rubtsou came to the Charnybyl Way rally wearing a T-shirt reading “Lukashenka, go away”. The police detained him and took him to a court stripped to trousers.

Judge Kiryl Palulekh decided to try Rubtsou dressed like that, and the activist called him a “rascal”, according to the judge. The Minsk city court dismissed Rubtsou's appeal.

Viasna human rights centre and the Belarusian Helsinki Committee say sentencing Yury Rubtsou to a term in an open-type correctional facility gives grounds to consider him a political prisoner.