15:48 12.11.2012

Ombudsperson not planning to ask Tymoshenko to end hunger strike

2 min read

Ukrainian Parliament Human Rights Commissioner Valeria Lutkovska has said she is not planning to call on former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to end her hunger strike, as previously requested by the State Penitentiary Service.

She said that the law says that the ombudsperson responds to applications from citizens, rather than government institutions.

"If I allow myself to be run by the penitentiary service or any other government agency, I'm afraid that I'll change my functions, and I would not want that," she said at a briefing in Kyiv on Monday.

Lutkovska added that she had already explained this position to the service.

As reported, on October 29, Tymoshenko went on a hunger strike in protest against election fraud.

On November 8, the ex-premier's lawyer, Serhiy Vlasenko, said that Tymoshenko had lost weight and that she was almost unable to walk on her own.

"Yulia Volodymyrivna has seriously lost weight... I last saw her a long time ago, and now I see that she has lost weight. She is very weak, and she is almost unable to walk on her own. As far as I know, she is not getting any treatment at all now," Vlasenko said.

On October 11, 2011, Pechersky District Court in Kyiv sentenced Tymoshenko to seven years in prison for abuse of office over the signing of gas contracts with Russia in 2009.

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