Solidarity Asks Aid for 4 Hunger Strikers

WARSAW — The Solidarity underground has issued an appeal to Western human rights groups to publicize the plight of four imprisoned activists who have been on hunger strikes for more than 100 days.

Three of the activists have refused to take nourishment since October and the fourth since November, according to the latest issue of Warsaw’s main underground bulletin, Tygodnik Mazowsze. All are said to have been kept alive by force-feeding.

The four men, jailed on charges ranging from illegal publishing to attempting to overthrow the state, are “demanding humanitarian treatment” for themselves and other Polish political prisoners, including the right to visits by family members, the weekly bulletin said.

It appealed for Western pressures on the Polish government to transfer the hunger strikers from Rakowiecka Prison in central Warsaw to a civilian hospital for intensive therapy.

One Fast Acknowledged

The Polish government has acknowledged only that one of the prisoners is on a hunger strike. In response to questions, government spokesman Jerzy Urban said last week that Czeslaw Bielecki, 38, an architect and writer, is being “force-fed and is under constant medical care.”

The three other prisoners listed by the underground bulletin are:

--Andrzej Gorski, 34, a worker arrested last May 29 on charges of illegal publishing. Reportedly in poor condition exacerbated by asthma, Gorski began a hunger strike Oct. 1 for the right to see his father, who was hospitalized after a series of strokes.

--Edmund Krasowski, arrested last Oct. 29 On a charge of “inciting social unrest.” As the sole support of his disabled mother, Krasowski has been on hunger strike since the day of his arrest, demanding to be released, the appeal said. His age was not given.

--Wlodzimierz Woronicki, 30, arrested in November on suspicion of stealing an offset printing machine from the state. Woronicki is said to have lost 20% of his body weight and to suffer from stomach ulcers. Like Bielecki, he is demanding to be given the status of political prisoner.

Less Stringent Regime

Formally, no such category exists under Polish law, but in practice political prisoners are usually held under a less stringent regime than common criminals. They are excused from prison labor, separated from criminal convicts and allowed to receive extra family visits and packages of food and clothing.

Of the four hunger strikers, Bielecki is the best known, and according to opposition sources, in the most serious condition. Since he began his protest Oct. 13, these sources said that Bielecki, who is 6 feet, 3 inches tall, has lost more than 65 pounds and now weighs only about 130 pounds. He is said to have lapsed into unconsciousness on two recent occasions.

After the martial-law suppression of the Solidarity trade union in December, 1981, Bielecki went into hiding to organize one of the leading clandestine newspapers, CDN, its initials standing for “to be continued” in Polish.

His underground publishing house continues to operate, producing the weekly CDN and about 10 illicit political books a year. Bielecki himself wrote scores of articles under the pen name Maciej Poleski until his arrest last April 13.

Since then, opposition sources said, the authorities have tried to link Bielecki to a group of at least four military officers who were arrested last spring on charges of publishing a subversive underground journal called Raduta (Redoubt) for circulation in the Polish armed forces.

The officers, all retired or reserve colonels, face possible death sentences for treason, the sources said.

Bielecki, who has not yet been brought to trial, was originally charged with subversion, an offense with a maximum prison sentence of five years. But the charge was recently raised to one of plotting to overthrow the socialist system in Poland, with a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. The more severe charge apparently reflects the authorities’ belief that he supported the underground military group.

Holocaust Survivors

Bielecki, who is Jewish, poses a special problem for the authorities, who are sensitive to lingering Western suspicions of anti-Semitism in Poland. His parents emigrated to Israel after an anti-Semitic purge in 1968 that sought to blame the country’s internal troubles on the remnant of the Polish Jewish community that survived the Nazi Holocaust.

Subsequent governments have disavowed the purge, and Poland is now cautiously reopening low-level contacts with Israel.

Family friends said Bielecki’s father arrived from Israel recently and has been promised permission to see his son in prison. The friends said he is reluctant to meet with Western reporters for fear that the permission will be withdrawn.

There are unconfirmed reports that the government is seeking a Western government that would accept Bielecki in exile. Polish law, however, does not currently allow for the expulsion of citizens from the country, and friends said it was most unlikely that he would agree to leave Poland, even under the threat of long imprisonment.

As a general principle, Western governments do not accept involuntary emigres.