English

Kozulin still set to go on hunger strike

Aleksandr Kozulin, who is serving a prison term in a correctional facility in the village of Vitba, three kilometers off Vitebsk, has not dropped his plans to go on hunger strike on October 20, according to his wife, Irina Kozulina.

She told reporters in Minsk on Monday that her husband had said so in his first letter from Vitba.

The former presidential candidate intends to stage the strike in protest against what he calls the illegal reelection of Aleksandr Lukashenko for a third term this past March. According to the politician, Mr. Lukashenko cannot be regarded as Belarus' legitimate leader after September 20, when his second term of office expired.

Mrs. Kozulina said that she was planning to meet with her husband the following day. "I am set to find out what steps we should take here to ensure that the strike lasts as little as possible. I won't even hear of it being indefinite."

The Belarusian Social Democratic Party "Hramada" (BSDP), which Dr. Kozulin leads, has called on the politician to drop his intention.

"As the history of hunger strikes in our country shows, they do not raise a big hue and cry as expected," Anatoly Levkovich, acting head of the BSDP, said at the news conference. "I know that idealism and self-sacrifice are strong things in politics, but winners are those who have survived."

The United Civic Party also has urged the imprisoned politician to refrain from the hunger strike protest, saying that its efficiency would be much lower than the price the politician would have to pay.

"My husband is cheerful and optimistic. He does not ask anything because imprisoned conditions are not yet clear. But he is sure that they will be normal," Mrs. Kozulina said.

Dr. Kozulin, 50, rector of Belarusian State University between 1996 and 2003, was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison on July 13.

He was found guilty of hooliganism and the organization of group actions disturbing the public peace. The latter charge was brought in connection with a peaceful post-election opposition march that was brutally dispersed by riot police.

The European Union and the United States denounced the trial as clearly politically motivated. //BelaPAN