68-Year-Old Activist Hospitalized

A 68-year-old activist who has been on a hunger strike for more than three weeks was briefly hospitalized on Sunday.

A 68-year-old activist who has been on a hunger strike for more than three weeks was briefly hospitalized on Sunday.

Nanaimo resident Howard Breen began his hunger strike on April 1, demanding a public meeting with B.C.'s Forests Minister Katrine Conroy, as well as an end to all old-growth logging in the province.

Breen stopped drinking liquids at midnight Friday morning, to coincide with Earth Day.

That same day, he began suffering serious health consequences due to the lack of fluids.

In a statement Sunday morning, Save Old Growth, an activist group of which Breen is a member, said Breen had been experiencing blurred vision, loss of balance, back pain around the kidneys and arrhythmia.

His daughter, who is a nurse and was part of the team monitoring him around the clock during his hunger strike, assessed him and called an ambulance.

Breen spoke on Sunday, saying that he spent less than three hours in hospital and had resumed drinking herbal teas. He said he plans to continue abstaining from food for the rest of the month.

Conroy did reach out to Breen and fellow hunger-striker Brent Eichler, a 57-year-old Vancouver resident who has been going without food for 31 days, on Friday.

Breen told media on Saturday that he hung up on the minister because she wasn't willing to commit to a public meeting.

Members of Save Old Growth are among the more than 1,000 people who have been arrested in the Fairy Creek watershed northwest of Victoria for allegedly violating an injunction against blockades.

The B.C. Supreme Court has heard that about 400 of them were charged with criminal contempt.

Breen said the RCMP arrested him elsewhere for other protests and that he is currently facing 12 charges, including for three times when he glued his hands to logs.

Conroy announced earlier this month that B.C. was working with First Nations to defer logging across more than a million hectares of old-growth forests at risk of permanent loss.