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Disabled woman in Minsk continues her lengthy hunger strike against death sentence on subway bombing suspects

A disabled woman in Minsk continues her lengthy hunger strike in protest against the death sentence passed on Dzmitry Kanavalaw and Uladzislaw Kavalyow in the subway bombing trial in Minsk on November 30.

Svyatlana Chornaya, who has a second-degree disability, began the strike a few days after Supreme Court Judge Alyaksandr Fedartsow pronounced the verdict. She sent an appeal to Alyaksandr Lukashenka, urging him to prevent the execution of the death row inmates.

“I drink only water,” Ms. Chornaya told BelaPAN on Tuesday. “I feel more or less fine.”

To a question as to how much weight she had lost during her strike, the woman replied that she did not know that exactly. “I weighed last a long time ago,” she noted.

Ms. Chornaya said that she was determined to deliver an appeal to the Belarusian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church later in the day to ask Patriarchal Exarch Filaret for a meeting. “I hope that he will do something to prevent the execution of the two men,” she said.

As for her appeal to Mr. Lukashenka over the fate of the two young men, Ms. Chornaya said that she had not yet received a reply. "My appeal was redirected to the presidential clemency board, whose representatives told me that the board would consider the appeal only after it received the criminal case of Kanavalaw and Kavalyow from the Supreme Court. They have not received it yet.”

In her appeal, Ms. Chornaya said, “I urge you to prevent the murder of the possibly innocent people by any means. Since there is no complete certainty about their guilt, their execution will be tantamount to murder.”

Messrs. Kanavalaw and Kavalyow, both aged 25, were sentenced to death as a result of their trial held between September 15 and November 30. They were convicted of the two 2005 bomb explosions in Vitsyebsk, the bomb attack that occurred during an open-air Independence Day concert in Minsk in July 2008 and the April 11, 2011 subway bombing that killed 15 people and injured more than 200. Mr. Kanavalaw was found guilty of perpetrating them, while Mr. Kavalyow of acting as his accomplice, as well as of failure to report the crimes or their preparation.