Political prisoner threatens with dry hunger strike
Political prisoner Yury Rubtsou threatens to go on a dry hunger strike, if he is to be tried behind the closed doors.
The Homel activist Yury Rubtsou threatens to stop drinking water when on a hunger strike, if he has to stand trial behind the closed doors. The activist, on a hunger strike since April 6 in a pre-trial detention center in Baranavichy, announced his intention in a letter to Human Rights Center Viasna.
He is holding a hunger strike in protest against his conviction. He is also protesting against new criminal charges - allegedly for avoiding the punishment. The activist describes the both cases as being trumped-up.
Rubtsou also wrote in the letter that had probably got a cold, as he was having back pain and had difficulties to breathe.
On October 6, 2014, Minsk's Central District Court sentenced Yury Rubtsou, 53 to two and a half years of restricted freedom in a labor colony. His term was reduced to one and a half years under amnesty. The activist was accused of slandering court justice Kiryk Palulekh who was presiding his trial after the Chernobyl March opposition action in Minsk.
When in the labor colony in Pryzhany district, Rubtsou refused to work citing a low pay. He demanded work that could give him an average wage in the country - $600 in the equivalent. That was why new criminal charges were brought against him.
Photo: svaboda.org
