Some Brest Hunger Strikers Stopped Protest :: Charter'97 :: News

On August 9 five participants of the hunger strike in Brest finished hunger strike as a sign of solidarity with Lubou Razanovich. A day before she was taken to the Central hospital in a moderately grave condition. The protesters who have finished the hunger strike are a driver of the hospitalized businesswoman and his wife, one of the owners of taxi shuttles and two vendors of the city market, Lubou Razanovich told to the BelaPAN.

“Seeing my condition and the results of the medical check-up, those people have come to a conclusion that a hunger strike is to dangerous way of asserting one’s rights. To show solidarity with me they finish the hunger strike as well,” L. Razanovich said.

Private entrepreneurs Viktar Chajkouski and Vyachaslau Kukharchuk have confirmed that they would finish the protest. They are vendors at Brest market, and they have joined the protest on July 24 to show their solidarity. “The main reason for finishing the protest is concern over Lubou Razanovich’s health,” Vyachaslau Kukharchuk said. “The ultrasound has shown that she has serious problems, with kidney in particular. We shall support her, as she is a courageous person. But a hunger strike is an extreme measure, and now we see that it has caused serious health problems”.

The head of therapeutics department Uladzimir Svartsevich told to the BelaPAN that Razanovich is in a moderately grave condition without negative dynamics, and more details could be given only on official request.

The termless hunger strike started in Brest on July 5. Now 15 hunger strikers take part in it. They are owners of taxi cars, their relatives, drivers and two vendors from a Brest market, who joined the protest. They demand to overturn the ruling of tax agencies. Hunger strikers refuse to pay the fee for using means of transportation in business activities paid by owners of cars imported to Belarus before 2004. The republican tax was imposed by a presidential decree in 2004, and the owners of taxi cars had imported cars in Belarus much earlier. On August 2 L. Razanovich sent an open letter to the president asking him “to prevent the human tragedy and to help”.