BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

16/11/2006

Former cellmate says jailed Belarus opposition leader's health declines in hunger strike

The Associated Press

MINSK, Belarus: The health of jailed Belarusian opposition leader Alexander Kozulin has declined badly since he started a hunger strike nearly a month ago, a former cellmate said Thursday.

Kozulin was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison in July after being convicted of organizing an unsanctioned rally against the disputed March re-election of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko. He ran against Lukashenko in a campaign marred by widespread arrests and harassment of the opposition.

Sergei Skrebets, a former legislator who was in the same prison cell as Kozulin, said the opposition leader had weakened considerably and lost 17 kilograms (37 pounds) after 26 days on hunger strike.

"Now he's skin and bones," said Skrebets, who was freed Wednesday in an amnesty.

"Kozulin demands that the United Nations react to the catastrophic human rights situation in Belarus," he said.

Skrebets himself was sentenced in February to 2 1/2 years in prison on charges of defrauding the state; rights activists have said he was persecuted for criticizing Lukashenko. After conducting numerous hunger strikes of his own, he was freed in an amnesty.

"President Lukashenko has established a regime of harsh political repression in the country, and civilized countries cannot close their eyes to this," Skrebets said.

Lukashenko has ruled the ex-Soviet republic of 10 million with an iron fist since 1994. He is a pariah in the West for crushing dissent and prolonging his rule through votes widely seen as fraudulent.

Also Thursday, Belarus' Foreign Ministry dismissed a resolution making its way through the United Nations that condemns human rights violations in the country. Spokesman Andrei Popov said the document, which the ministry said was now in its third reading before a General Assembly, was nothing more than a "collection of everyday stamps."

"In particular, we consider this document ... to be a 'pseudo-indictment' which, as usual, the United States and Europe have put forward against Belarus," Popov said.

In Minsk, meanwhile, police arrested 10 people participating in a small demonstration in support of political prisoners in Belarus. About five minutes after nearly 40 people gathered in a central square, police began arresting some of the participants and the protest broke up soon after.

Belarusian opposition activists mark a day of solidarity with political prisoners every month; many opposition leaders have been imprisoned in recent years or have disappeared entirely under Lukashenko.

"If we don't protest against harsh political repression today, then tomorrow they'll come to arrest us," said one protester, Galina Turovskaya, 18.

Police had no immediate comment on the arrests.

Source:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/11/16/europe/EU_GEN_Belarus_Opposition.php

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