Opposition activist Maksim Viniarski goes on hunger strike in jail

As it became known to the Human Rights Center “Viasna”, Maksim Viniarski, an activist of the European Belarus opposition movement, on January 26 he began a hunger strike in protest against the sentence imposed by the court. On January 23, Judge Viktoryia Shabunia of the Tsentralny District Court sentenced the activist to an administrative arrest of 15 days for taking part in a rally in memory of the people killed during the Euromaidan protests in Kyiv.

On January 22, about 15 people lit candles and laid flowers at the monument to Taras Shevchenko near the Embassy of Ukraine in Minsk. The picketers displayed a large portrait of Mikhail Zhyzneuski, a Belarusian national who died during the protests in Kyiv. The participants were soon detained by riot police and brought to the police station. Some participants said that police officers used violence during the arrest. The following day, five protesters were sentenced to arrests and Nina Bahinskaya received a fine.

Maksim Viniarski has been repeatedly detained by police officers during and ahead of the officially authorized events of the democratic community, and subsequently served short prison terms. In April 2014, he was on a hunger strike for a long period of time.