The number of people on a hunger strike in the town of Lermontov came to 22

During the past 24 hours four people joined the participants of an action of protest in form of a hunger strike in the town of Lermontov, Stavropol region. So, 22 persons are taking part in the hunger strike at the moment, two of them are in hospital. According to head of the region Valery Gaevsky, the protesters are using coercive methods to achieve their goal which will be estimated by law enforcement bodies respectively.

On February, 28, unregistered candidate Alexander Boiko and three sympathizing residents of the town: Raisa Vegerya, Victor Gorshkov and Elena Kovaleva joined the strikers. A fifty-five-years-old Chernobyl disaster fighter Alexander Knyazev was hospitalized.

The physicians had registered aggravation of Knyazev's state of health during the last four days and he had been under their special care because of hypertensive disease.

His comrades in the hunger strike were urging him to go to hospital for two days but he refused. On February, 28, he felt too bad, his blood pressure rose and the attempts to lower it failed. After persistent urging Alexander Knyazev was taken to clinic No 101 of Lermontov with suspected hypertensic crisis.

He was already the second participant of the hunger strike in Lermontov who was hospitalized at the physicians' insistence. Both Mikhail Markus and Alexander Knyazev refuse to stop the hunger strike and are going on with their protest in hospital, municipal public informational web-site reports.

Emotions of the citizens tired of struggle for power are being inflamed by a group of instigators, Governor of Stavropol region Valery Gaevsky declared. In his opinion, the participants of the action are trying to bring pressure upon the court and electoral system and achieve their goal by force, the Governor' web-site of reports.