Five More Persons Joined Hunger Strike in Vaukavysk :: Charter'97 :: News

Today is the 22nd day of hunger strike of Vaukavysk entrepreneur Mikalay Autukhovich. Five more people went on hunger strike with him on Monday. According to protesters, now the protest has 35 participants.

Mikalay Autukhovich told about the present condition of the participants of the protest:

“Two cars with Hrodna number plates are shadowing us. The situation is incomprehensible. Something is changing, but not to our benefit. Why? If they would decide to make a decision to our benefit, they would not keep us under observation and wiretap our telephones. Almost all our telephones are wiretapped, and the whole town knows about it. Last week workers of the executive committee visited all the apartments of hunger-strikers and offered them job, tried to talk the wives into persuading their husbands. It continued on Sunday in the form of phone calls,” told the entrepreneur to Radio Svaboda.

The entrepreneur Mikalay Autukhovich protests against actions of the authorities that interfere in his work. Mister Autukhovich owns 22 taxi cars, and he employs drivers from the firm “Nika-Trans”, which is fined 2 milliard rubles. The authorities believe that the firm is engaged in taxi business without a licence. But M. Autukhovich believes that they had not violated the law, as he and the “Nika-Trans” had signed an agreement about driving the taxis to which the “Nika-Trans” bears no relation. The account of the Nika-Trans is arrested, and its seven trucks stopped the work. The drivers of the taxi cars are afraid to loose their job.