BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS
DATE:
24/02/2008
Imprisoned Belarusian opposition figure seeks release for wife's funeral
MINSK, Belarus (AP) - A jailed opposition leader in Belarus began a hunger strike Sunday after prison authorities refused to let him out of prison for his wife's funeral, his lawyer said.
Prison authorities denied a request to release Alexander Kozulin temporarily to bury his wife, Irina, who died overnight after a struggle with cancer, attorney Igor Rynkevich told The Associated Press.
Kozulin was arrested during an opposition protest after challenging authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko in the former Soviet republic's 2006 presidential election. He was found guilty of organizing mass protests and sentenced to 5? years in a high-security prison.
Other members of the former Soviet republic's beleaguered opposition are calling on the authorities to release him altogether due to his wife's death.
Rynkevich said the refusal to let him out for the funeral, scheduled for Tuesday, was illegal.
Kozulin is refusing both food and water and plans to appeal to the United States and European Union to tighten their sanctions against Belarus if he is not allowed to attend the funeral, Rynkevich said.
The U.S. and EU have imposed sanctions against Lukashenko and other government officials to punish the country's leadership for its oppressive treatment of critics, intolerance for independent media and conduct of elections the West has dismissed as illegitimate.
Lukashenko has been in power since 1994.
Source:
http://www.pr-inside.com/imprisoned-belarusian-opposition-figure-r453540.htm
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