Today, after over 20 days of hunger strike Anatol Mătăsaru might end it

On May 15th, the court declined the appeal submitted on behalf of Mr. Mătăsaru to change his imprisonment to home arrest. Previously, on May 8th, the court had decided on the prolongation of Mr. Mătăsaru detention period to yet another 30 days.
According to his lawyer, the judge based his decision on an almost identical prosecutor's argumentation as on April 21st.
Julia Saviţchi, Mr. Mătăsaru's wife, in a reportage broadcast on www.jurnal.md announced that she was expecting such a sentence; that her husband wouldn't be freed and neither would the other political prisoners without an order from above. She also announced that she is pregnant!;) Congratualtions!
In court she tried to convince Anatol to stop his strike, and promised to bring him some food to the prison. However, (according to www.garda.com.md) later today, when she wanted to pass it to him, she was told that her husband could not receive anything before he signed a declaration that he ended his strike.
She also said that she finally received the wedding band that had been confiscated by the police during Anatol's arrest. The information about the ring's disappearance was mentioned a few times in the Moldova's mass-media but I didn't think it was so important. I thought that the belongings of the arrested people were kept at the police quarters and only given back upon their release. However, it seems that at least some Moldovan police officers have a habit of not returning the belongings of the released people. There have been cases of jewelry, wallets, money, bank cards, cell phones mysteriously 'disappearing' from the police quarters. So, in a way, getting Anatol's wedding band back is a victory.

see here the reportage in Romanian language:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHU8SQc8Zc8&feature=channel_page

p.s. The portrait I drew when I launched this blog now seems to be the portrait of another man... I must try to do another updated portrait...

p.p.s. I found the picture I post below on the web page of www.jurnal.md. It was done in February 2009 (it seems that it is also the work of Oleg Brega) during the trial when the case against Mătăsaru was dismissed by the judge because of lack of crime evidence.
You can see in this picture how different he looked then (double click to enlarge it). Also, notice the interesting detail on his finger - the ring that I was talking about above...