Ukraine's Tymoshenko Ends Hunger Strike
Ukraine's jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko has ended a hunger strike on the 11th day after pleas from the protesters in Kiev's central square, her daughter told journalists on Friday.
"On the request of the Maidan she is ending her hunger strike," Yevgenia Tymoshenko said after visiting her mother in hospital. Maidan is the name for Kiev's Independence Square and also for the protest movement occupying it.
"Yesterday I was on the Maidan and they gave me a petition asking her to stop the hunger strike. When I gave it to her today, she said that today, on the people's request, she would end the hunger strike," Yevgenia Tymoshenko said.
She added that European leaders, whom she did not identify, had also asked for Tymoshenko to end her hunger strike.
Tymoshenko announced a hunger strike on November 25 over a government decision to scrap a key EU pact that sparked huge protests on the square, which was the scene of the 2004 Orange Revolution led by Tymoshenko.
Tymoshenko was jailed in 2011 for seven years for abuse of power and has spent much of her sentence in a guarded hospital facility due to back problems.
The European Union made allowing her to go abroad for treatment a key condition for a historic deal with Ukraine that President Viktor Yanukovych rejected under pressure from Russia.
Source: Agence France Presse
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