Death row prisoner Ihar Hershankou loses 18 kilos on hunger strike
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- Ihar Hershankou (second right) on trial at the Supreme Court. Photo: TUT.by
Ihar Hershankou started his hunger strike on June 27 to protest violations of his right to correspondence, after all his complaints, including to the Prosecutor General, the Department of Corrections and Belarus’s envoy to the UN, as well as many letters to relatives, failed not reach their destinations.
“He has lost 18 kilograms. His eyes are lifeless. He can barely move his feet. He even spoke with difficulty, stammering at every word,” the prisoner’s mother said after visiting him in prison on July 25.
The woman says that the prison doctors put him droppers. Masked policemen in bullet-proof vests assist the doctors so that the prisoner did not resist.
According to Hershankou’s mother, before her visit he was cautioned against complaining. Otherwise, he might be deprived of all visits and placed in solitary confinement.
However, she was able to tell her son that the UN Human Rights Committee confirmed the registration of his individual complaint and enforced interim measures to suspend the execution of the death penalty.
Ihar Hershankou and Siamion Berazhnoy were sentenced to death by the Mahilioŭ Regional Court on July 21, 2017.
On December 20, 2017, the Criminal Division of the Supreme Court upheld both verdicts.
