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Convicted post-election protester Likhavid set to go on hunger strike

Convicted post-election protester Mikita Likhavid plans to go on hunger strike in protest against his three-and-a-half-year prison sentence, his mother Alena Likhavid told BelaPAN.

On March 29, Judge Natallya Pykina of the Partyzanski District Court in Minsk found the 20-year-old man guilty of participation in “mass disorder” under Part Two of the Criminal Code’s Article 293 in connection with a post-election demonstration that was staged in Minsk’s central Independence Square on the night of December 19, 2010 in protest against election fraud.

Ms. Likhavid said that she had visited her son in Pretrial Detention Center No. 1 in Minsk on March 31. "He told me yesterday that he is going to start hunger strike on Monday. I tried to talk him out of this, as the son`s health has already been affected, he is suffering from eyesight problems," she said, noting that Mr. Likhavid`s friends were also attempting to dissuade him from refusing food.

"But Mikita is determined, he flatly disagrees with the court`s ruling," she added.

Mr. Likhavid was expected to meet with his lawyer Darya Lipkina on Friday to discuss his appeal against the sentence.

The woman said that it was not yet known where her son would be sent to serve his sentence. She said that the young man wanted to serve the term in the Vitsba correctional institution in the Vitsyebsk region.

Meanwhile, prominent blogger Dzmitry Halko on March 30 announced that he was going on hunger strike to demand the release of all political prisoners, including Mr. Likhavid. He said that he would refuse food until the young man was freed.

Mr. Likhavid, an activist of the Movement for Freedom, was arrested during the December 19 protest and sentenced to 15 days in jail. On December 23, the sentence was annulled and he was charged with participating in mass disorder. He was transferred from the detention center in Zhodzina to Pretrial Detention Center No. 1 to await his trial.

He became the eighth person to stand trial in a so-called riot case that was launched following the December 19 protest.

The first trial in the case was held on February 17, with a district judge in Minsk sentencing a young opposition activist, Vasil Parfyankow, to four years in prison on a charge of participation in mass disorder. Of the six post-election protesters who stood trial later, three received prison sentences of three to four years, two were heavily fined and one was sentenced to a three-year “restricted freedom” term.