One of the leaders of a small-business owners movement in Belarus has been hospitalized after a lengthy hunger strike, RFE/RL's Belarus Service reports.
Mykalay Autukhovich and two other vendors from the town of Vaukavysk were arrested earlier this year for allegedly damaging a local official's property.
All three businessmen were put in Minsk's detention center on February 8.
Autukhovich has been on a hunger strike since April 16.
He and his jailed colleagues say they are innocent and that all the charges against them are politically motivated.
His lawyer, Paval Sapelka, told RFE/RL that his client's condition is worrisome, adding that his continued stay in the detention center might have serious consequences.
Meanwhile, officials at the Interior Ministry's hospital in Minsk, where Autukhovich was brought on May 19, told RFE/RL that his condition is satisfactory.