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Maxim Znak (recorded at the end of August)
Photo: Sergei Grits / AP
In Belarus, the imprisoned opposition lawyer Maxim Znak went on a hunger strike to protest his charges.
This was announced by a spokesman for the democracy movement in Minsk.
The 39-year-old Znak is accused of endangering national security.
Znak was arrested on September 9th.
With the hunger strike he is protesting against the arbitrariness of the authorities under the controversial head of state Alexander Lukashenko.
Znak's lawyer Dmitri Lajewski said of the indictment that it was a staged accusation to suppress free expression.
It is not clear what the investigators based their allegations on.
If convicted, Znak faces up to five years in prison.
Lajewski said his client had declared that he would refuse to eat.
Znak, a lawyer, is a member of the Presidium of the Coordination Council of Belarusian Civil Society for a Peaceful Change of Power.
Lukashenko's power apparatus has been taking arrests and raids against the body for weeks.
Most of the presidium members are either in custody, including opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova, or abroad.
Only the Nobel laureate in literature Svetlana Alexijewitsch and, since Friday, the trade unionist Sergei Dylewski, are free in Minsk.
Since the presidential election in Belarus on August 9th, there have been protests every day.
Lukashenko declared himself the winner, allegedly receiving 80.1 percent of the vote.
The security forces take tough action against his opponents who accuse him of massive election fraud.
Neither the EU nor the USA recognize the result officially mentioned.
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