Political prisoner Artsyom Dubski went on hungers strike

• 20.07.2009, 12:52

The “Young Front” activist went on hunger strike against pressure of the administration of the detention facility in Babruisk.

Alena Dubskaya, mother of the political prisoner, told this to Radio Svaboda.

The woman said the lawyer visited her son Artsyom Dubski on July 16 and they made an appeal against the decision of the Asipovichy district court. The administration of the pre-trial detention facility in Babruisk told Dubski on next day to write an application for transferring him in a penal colony to serve the punishment.

According to the law, the convicted can remain in a detention facility until he gets responses from all agencies he applied to. Artsyom Dubski told his mother he had fallen sick, but doctors had refused to give him medicines and the administration had created harsh conditions. In response, Dubski went on hunger strike.

The political prisoner was on hunger strike of solidarity with arrested entrepreneurs from Vaukavysk Mikalai Autukhovich, Yury Lyavonau, and Uladzimir Asipenka.

We remind that participant of the Process of 14 Artsyom Dubski was sentenced to a year in a minimum security penal colony on July 7 for violation of the rules of serving punishment in the Case of 14. In 2008, Dubski had to left for Ukraine as militia officers had given him two far-fetched warnings for violation of the rules of serving. Dubski was detained in Homel on February 13, 2009.

The Case of 14 is a criminal case under article 342 of the Criminal Code of Belarus, instigated against participants of a peaceful rally of entrepreneurs held in Minsk on January 10, 2008.

14 youth activists were sentenced to different terms of restriction of liberty and imprisonment for participation in this rally. Amnesty International recognized participants of the Process of 14 Prisoners of Conscience in 2009.