Doug McGregor of Correctional Service Canada said yesterday that Mrs. [Mary Astaforoff] was being fed every four hours and did not put up any fight when the force-feeding began. ''She seems in good spirits,'' Mr. McGregor said. ''They put her outside yesterday (Sunday) in the sunshine and she seemed much better.'' Mrs.

Woman in good spirits after being force-fed

Tuesday, July 19, 1983

Vancouver BC -- VANCOUVER (CP) - A 69-year-old Doukhobor woman was reported in good spirits after her 18-day fast ended Sunday when she was force-fed by a physician at Matsqui federal prison.

The move came two days after federal Solicitor-General Robert Kaplan ordered that she be transferred to the federal institution from the provincial Lakeside Correctional Centre in suburban Burnaby and force-fed to prevent her from starving to death.

Mr. Kaplan ordered the move despite a ruling a day earlier by the B.C. Court of Appeal, upholding a B.C. Supreme Court decision not to order provincial prison authorities to force-feed the woman.

Mary Astaforoff was fed a liquid nutrient mixture by tubes through her nose. Dr. Douglas Roberts of Victoria agreed to conduct the force-feeding after authorities searched frantically on the weekend for a doctor willing to supervise the procedure.

The B.C. Medical Association has refused to sanction force-feeding without the patient's permission.

Doug McGregor of Correctional Service Canada said yesterday that Mrs. Astaforoff was being fed every four hours and did not put up any fight when the force-feeding began. ''She seems in good spirits,'' Mr. McGregor said. ''They put her outside yesterday (Sunday) in the sunshine and she seemed much better.'' Mrs. Astaforoff said she was starving herself to disrupt the corrections system and to force the release of two other women, who are members of the Sons of Freedom Doukhobor sect and are serving sentences in the Kingston penitentiary.

Mrs. Astaforoff's son Peter had appealed to authorities on the weekend to speed up the planned force-feedings.

In the last 18 months, Mrs. Astaforoff has fasted more than 200 days. She has spent 20 years in prisons for various bombing and burning incidents, her son said.

For seven of those years she fasted but was force-fed through a tube in her nose, he said, but recently prison authorities changed their policy so that hunger strikers would only be fed when they requested it or when they lost consciousness.

Mr. Kaplan said last Friday the Astaforoff case was no different than a person trying to hang himself or slash his wrists. ''I feel it's our duty to cut her down or to take her to the hospital or in this case to force- feed her to keep her alive.'' Mrs. Astaforoff will be eligible for release on mandatory supervision in November. The Doukhobors are a religous sect that fled Russia in 1898 and settled in southeastern B.C. The Sons of Freedom, an extremist sect of which Mrs. Astaforoff is a member, believe God tells them to set fires to destroy property to purify themselves.

They became prominent during the 1950s and 1960s for bombings and arson attacks conducted to protest against an attempt by the provincial government to put their children in public schools.