Maria Zarubin, Mrs. [Tina Jmaieff]'s daughter, and Polly Chernoff, Mrs. [Braun]'s sister-in-law, are both tense about the women's condition. "They told Lucy (Mrs. [Mary Astaforoff]'s sister) that she was being well taken care of, but the nurse didn't even know she would die," Mrs. Chernoff said. "We're not going to ask nothing (of the Government). We're very upset." Mrs.

Authorities won't alter policy Sons of Freedom gravesite chosen for B.C. woman who died in fast

Wednesday, November 27, 1985

RITA MOIR

GRAND FORKS, B. C. -- BY RITA MOIR Special to The Globe and Mail GRAND FORKS, B. C.

Mary Astaforoff will be buried next to her husband, Peter, on Friday in the Sons of Freedom community of Gilpin.

Mrs. Astaforoff died on Sunday on the 54th day of a hunger strike at the Matsqui federal penitentiary in British Columbia. She had refused medical intervention up to the time of her death.

The Doukhobor woman was serving a 10-year term for arson and had spent more than 22 years of her life in prison for arson, nude protests and contempt of court.

She had said that if she died in prison, the prison could bury her. But she left the final decision to her family.

Her son, Peter, said yesterday that he would like to have had her life saved, but it was her choice not to be force-fed. "If that's how she wanted it, and that's how the authorities saw it, that's OK. It was her wish." He said the Sons of Freedom community saw her "as a good soldier to the end. I don't think they begrudge the authorities for how she died - not this isolated incident - but in general in the struggle." Sons of Freedom members Mary Braun, 65, and Tina Jmaieff, 61, are on the 51st day of their fast in the same prison. Dianne Brown of the Corrections Service of Canada said the women are weak but conscious and alert. Ms Brown said the Corrections Service is not reconsidering its policy of allowing hunger strikers to make their own decisions. "That policy stands, unless there is a reason for medical intervention. If a person is no longer mentally capable of making a decision, a medical decision will be made." Mrs. Jmaieff told her family on Monday after Mrs. Astaforoff's death that she and Mrs. Braun would continue their fast.

Maria Zarubin, Mrs. Jmaieff's daughter, and Polly Chernoff, Mrs. Braun's sister-in-law, are both tense about the women's condition. "They told Lucy (Mrs. Astaforoff's sister) that she was being well taken care of, but the nurse didn't even know she would die," Mrs. Chernoff said. "We're not going to ask nothing (of the Government). We're very upset." Mrs. Zarubin said the women should be sent home. "They're sending them out of the prison dead. We'd prefer to have mother sent home alive, not dead." Robin Bourne, an assistant deputy minister in the Department of the B.

C. Attorney-General's Department, who heads a committee investigating the causes of arson, has sent a letter of condolence to Mrs. Astaforoff's family.

Mr. Bourne said he liked Mrs. Astaforoff and felt very sad about her death. He said that because he is not a Doukhobor, he could not understand her lack of confidence in the process that is trying to untangle the reasons for arson.

Mr. Bourne said earlier that he does not see the Doukhobors as terrorists, but that the Sons of Freedom among them who use fire do so out of a spiritual and mystical nature that he is trying to understand.

Greg Cran, a representative from the Attorney-General's Ministry in the Kootenays, said Mrs. Astaforoff was "a charming person who often was seen as an enigma, especially to those in the criminal justice sustem. On the one hand, she was stubborn, with incredibly strong convictions. She was also seen as mild- mannered, soft-spoken and fragile looking from the long years of fasting." Dr. Mark Mealing, a scholar of the Doukhobors, said the Sons of Freedom would expect those outside their own community and outside the Doukhobor community to recognize that Mrs. Astaforoff had an intention in dying, that she had not done it out of irrationality, but that there were historical and social reasons behind her intentions.

He said if few people attend her funeral "then the bitterness is not assuaged, her work is not complete, and someone may feel compelled to carry on the actions, since one martyrdom did not convince anyone."