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Syarhey Kavalenka set to continue his hunger strike until he is released

Syarhey Kavalenka is determined to continue his hunger strike until he is released, the brother of the 37-year-old opposition activist currently in a prison hospital in Minsk, told BelaPAN on Monday.

"Our mother and I visited the hospital earlier today," Vital Kavalenka said. "Syarhey looked unwell and very thin. His weight was last measured several days ago. It was then 56 kilograms, down from 83 kilograms before the hunger strike. He now feels it's no more than 50 kilograms."

The three people who are in the same room with Syarhey smoke and eat in his presence, which is very bad for his physical and psychological state, Vital said.

According to him, Syarhey said that he missed his family very much, and that he would continue his hunger strike until he was released and was actually ready to stop drinking water.

An appeal has already been filed against the prison sentence imposed on Syarhey late last month, Vital said.

In May 2010, the member of the Conservative Christian Party was sentenced to a suspended three-year prison sentence after he put a white-red-white flag on top of Vitsyebsk's tallest Christmas tree in early January 2010.

On December 19, 2011, Kavalenka was arrested at home on a charge of violating probation rules four times and placed in a detention center. He has been on hunger strike and force-fed since then.

On February 24, a district judge in Vitsyebsk sentenced him to two years and one month in a low security correctional institution on a charge of violating probation rules.

Four days later, Mr. Kavalenka was transferred from the Vitsyebsk jail to the prison hospital in Minsk.