Syarhei Kavalenka ends hunger strike

• 13.04.2012, 15:44

The political prisoner has stopped the hunger strike voluntary.

Radio Svaboda has learned it from the father of the political prisoner, Alyaksandr Kavalenka, who visited his son in the pshychiatric hospital in Minsk.

“He said he began to drink juices and eat. He is not fed through a tube and does not receive IV therapy. He is in a good mood. He asked me to tell about his family. According to him, attitude here is much better than in Vitba-3 penal colony,” Alyaksandr Kavalenka said.

We remind the court of the Pershamaiski district of Vitebsk sentenced Syarhei Kavalenka to two years and a month in prison on February 24. The opposition activists was accused of a probation violation (article 415 of the Criminal Court).

In May 2010, Kavalenka was given a suspended sentence by the Kastrychnitski district court for hanging out a national white-red-white flag on a Christmas Tree in Vitebsk. Kavalenka has been in custody since December 19, 2011. He went on hunger strike in protest and lost half his body weight. According to his wife, he weights 45 kg against his normal 83 kg.

Doctors began to force-feed him on April 1. Kavalenka refused to take food in prison in spite of remonstrances of his relatives, public activists and opposition politicians. Kavalenka said he was ready to stop hunger strike only in a hospitals for civilians.

The Belarusian democratic community and international organizations demand to release the oppostion activist.