Five Days of Hunger Strike for Lula's Release from Prison

Brasilia, Aug 4 (Prensa Latina) The six members of Brazilian popular movements who are demanding the release of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva by the Supreme Federal Court (STF) are today on their fifth day of a hunger strike.

After four days without eating food, the strikers suffer from more fatigue, more frequent headaches, alteration in blood pressure and weight loss of up to 1.3 kilograms, according to the second medical report issued on Friday night.

Some of them have lost mass from fat reserves and when they decrease they can begin to lose part of the muscle mass, which will have to be followed more closely, said Dr. Ronald Wollf, who accompanies their evolution and was quoted by the newspaper Brasil de Fato.

Wollf, who has experience in three other hunger strikes, explained that one of the strikers had symptoms of polyuria, a urinary disorder that makes the body produce an abnormally large amount of urine.

One of the strikers, the leader of the Movement of Small Farmers (MPA), Fray Sergio Görgen, told the newspaper that the hunger strike makes sense when all the other methods were used and the result was not achieved, which is the case in Brazil.

'Justice is blocking the legitimate legal solutions that could and should have been taken' to resume democratic normalcy and make Lula leave prison, as he is the victim of a fraudulent process, he is a prisoner without crimes and he is politically persecuted, he said.