Watchdog

HOMEL, Belarus -- Police in Belarus' southeastern city of Homel have searched the home of local human rights activist Leanid Sudalenka.

Deputy Chairman of opposition United Civil Party, Vasil Palyakou, told RFE/RL April 8 that police also searched offices at the city's civic and political center.

The searches have been sanctioned by the local prosecutor's office and were connected to the distribution of pornographic material, allegedly from Sudalenka's computer, Palyakou said.

Sudalenka is currently on trip to Sweden.

A Russian activist who was jailed after raising concern about the environmental impact of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi has gone on a hunger strike.

The Environmental Watch on North Caucasus, a nongovernmental organization focusing on the southern Russian region where the Sochi Games were held, said that Yevgeny Vitishko began a hunger strike on April 7 to protest the Supreme Court's refusal to consider his appeal on March 20.

Vitishko was initially handed a three-year suspended sentence in 2012 for spray-painting the fence of a property in a forest where construction was banned.

But In December 2013, a court in the city of Tuapse ruled that he had violated the terms of the sentence and sent him to prison.

A higher court upheld that decision in February 2014.

The prominent Moscow-based human rights group Memorial considers Vitishko a political prisoner, and Amnesty International has named him a "prisoner of conscience."