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Jailed dissident Awtukhovich’s hunger strike in second month

A hunger strike by Mikalay Awtukhovich, an opponent of the government who has been held in custody for more than three months, entered its second month on Saturday, said BelaPAN.

Mr. Awtukhovich, Yury Lyavonaw and Uladzimir Asipenka were apprehended in armed raids in their hometown of Vawkavysk, Hrodna region, on the morning of February 8 and brought to a detention center in Minsk on the same day. They are said to be accused of perpetrating a series of arsons and explosions targeting the property of local officials and of illegal possession of explosives and firearms.

Mr. Awtukhovich announced on April 16 that he had gone on an open-ended hunger strike to protest his months-long detention and demand that the case should be either referred to court or all people under investigation in the case should be released on their own recognizance.

He has refused to end the fast despite his rapidly deteriorating health and is currently staying in the medical unit of the detention center on Valadarskaha Street in Minsk.

Meanwhile, there appears to be little progress in the investigation of the case against the three dissidents. It was initially led by an investigator in Hrodna but a Minsk investigator has recently been put in charge, according to human rights defender Aleh Volchak.

The latter investigator also is in charge of the investigation into a case against a certain Laryn, who is accused of possession of a grenade launcher and a homemade explosive devise.

Mr. Volchak suggested that the Vawkavysk dissidents could be charged in the Laryn case. “Being a former investigator at a prosecutor’s office, I can describe the investigators’ actions as a slow inquiry. This is a professional term, which means that the investigation can be protracted until some proof of the suspects’ guilt of anything is found,” he said.

Messrs. Awtukhovich and Lyavonaw, former business partners, were sentenced to more than three years in prison in July 2006 for alleged tax evasion and illegal business activities. They were both granted early release in January last year.

Mr. Awtukhovich, who was widely believed to be a prisoner of conscience, insisted that he had been sent to prison because he had protested authorities’ arbitrary rule.

The man, who is a leader of a nascent association of foreign war veterans, was among the three civil society activists who petitioned the government in January to restore state benefits for the Soviet-Afghan war’s veterans.