Liubou Razanovich stops hunger-strike

09.08.2006.

Today Liubou Razanovich, a participant of the protest action of owners and drivers of route taxis in Brest, has stated the following to RFE/RL:

Today I the doctors have said I would be confessed disabled because of my state of health. I have ill kidneys, liver and milt& I ask you to put it as it is, for the officials to listen.

Every month I pay 1 230 000 Belarusian rubles as dues and taxes to the state. What do I owe to it? Who will take the responsibility for me having lost my health? Let them hear and know.

In the case of further harassment I will resume the dry hunger-strike and ask for political asylum abroad. Honest entrepreneurs cant live in Belarus. Couldnt the authorities have solved our problems within two-week term?

Today I suspend the hunger-strike. My supporters Trafim Bhdasaran, his wife Halina Baretskaia, Viktar Chaikouski, Viachaslau Kukharchuk stop hungering as well.

The termless hunger strike started in Brest on 5 July. 15 persons have taken part in it. They are owners of taxi cars, their relatives, drivers and two vendors from a Brest market, who joined the protest. They demand to overturn the ruling of tax agencies. Hunger strikers refused to pay the fee for using means of transportation in business activities paid by owners of cars imported to Belarus before 2004. The republican tax was imposed by a presidential decree in 2004, and the owners of taxi cars had imported cars in Belarus much earlier.

On 2 August L.Razanovich sent an open letter to Aliaksandr Lukashenka, asking him to prevent a tragedy and help her. In the morning of 8 August she was taken to the central hospital of Brest for rehabilitation.