Hospitalized Volgograd hunger-striker starts eating for health indications

Valery Vitkin, a hospitalized participant of the hunger strike, held by parents of many children and parents of disabled children in Volgograd, has begun taking food, said Georgy Goryachevskiy, another hunger-striker.

"Valery's health status has stabilized. Doctors persuaded him to start eating, in order not to harm the health, but he doesn't give up his claims," Georgy Goryachevskiy told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent on February 16.

According to his story, now 28 people are on a permanent hunger strike; and more than 300 are protesting in the form of the so-called "fan-like" (intermittent) hunger strike.

He added that as they learnt from the media, doctors had applied to the police against the organizers of the hunger strike.

Let us note here that the doctors' application was reported on February 16 by the "Rossiyskaya Gazeta", which quoted Ekaterina Golod, the press secretary of the Volgograd Governor. "It was done by ambulance doctors and physicians from Polyclinics No. 3 of the Tsentralny District, who tried to visit the hunger-strikers aiming to examine them and, if necessary, render medical assistance. However, the protesters refused to talk with the doctors," the newspaper quoted Ms Golod as saying.

"Doctors applied to the police, as they suspect an element of a criminal offense: incitement to suicide," Ekaterina Golod has explained.