Chechen Rights Activist On Hunger Strike Weakens

(RFE/RL) Prague, 4 January 2006 (RFE/RL) -- A Chechen human rights activist who has been on hunger strike for 26 days is now in a life-threatening condition, says the Society for Threatened Peoples, a German-based human rights watchdog that is monitoring his protest.

Speaking today from his home in Strasbourg, France, Said-Emin Ibragimov, a former Soviet boxing champion, told RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service that the international community must do more to solve the Chechen crisis.

"Today I ask everybody to understand this move correctly," he said. "We are asking for [attention] from the European Parliament, the PACE [Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe], the United Nations…We are asking for recognition that the rights of the Chechen people have been violated. We are asking that to be stated in legal form and to restore these rights. If these demands are met, the hunger strike will end."

(RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service)