Starving Artist Denied Attorney in Jail :: Charter'97 :: News

Dmitry Ivanovsky, who’s holding a hunger-strike of protest in Grodno incarceration for twelve days now, cannot be visited by his lawyer. Artist Dmitry Ivanovsky was sentenced to 15 days of administrative arrest for alleged organization of an unsanctioned entrepreneurs’ picket opposite the regional hall’s building in late January. Following the verdict’s announcement he declared a hunger-strike right in the courtroom.

Yesterday the defendant’s representatives, chairman of the regional branch of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee Alexander Antonyuk filed a petition over cancellation of the administrative sentence. The text of the appeal was never coordinated with the artist – on Friday, February 7, the head of the Oktyabrsky district police of Grodno Gennady Khatko refused to let the attorney visit his client in jail.

- I brought to him written plea to allow me to visit Ivanovsky, but Khatko replied that this is no dating service, - said Antonuyk.

Now the lawyer is set to appeal against this discrimination in the regional Department of interior affairs and the procuracy. Khatko himself declined to comment on the incident.