Zmitser Shauchenka on hungry strike in detention facility

• 20.09.2011, 14:02

Zmitser Shauchenka, a public activist from Homel sentenced to 15 days of arrest for distributing leaflets about a protest action on September 21, has gone on hunger strike.

Administration of the detention facility said today that passing food, juice and mineral water to Shauchenka was forbidden, Radio Svaboda reports.

Shauchenka’s friends passed clothes, toothpaste, soap and other personal hygiene products.

Zmitser Karashkou, sentenced to 3 days of arrest for distributing leaflets about silent protests on September 21, was released from the detention facility at 11 am on September 20.

A police patrol car took him to a bus stop passing by his wife and friends, who were waiting for him at the detention facility gates.

Karashkou said Shauchenka and he had been in different cells.

“The authorities are scared, that’s why they punish us with arrests,” Zmitser Karashkou says.