[John Verigin] rejected a proposal by the Freedomite delegation to have the women released into his Orthodox community, the largest of the three Doukhobor sects.

Greg Cran, the attorney general's Doukhobor liaison officer, said he doesn't think there's the same wide-spread community support for the women's release as in past years because of [Tina Zmaeff] and Braun's record of parole violations.

Orthodox Doukhobor Jim Popoff said the women are violating the Doukhobor faith by committing suicide, which sparked angry reactions from others at the meeting.

CASTLEGAR - A delegation representing three Doukhobor groups today will phone Matsqui prison to try to convince two Freedomite women to give up their hunger strike.

And a letter signed by members of the Reformed and Freedomite Doukhobors calling for the "unconditional release" of Mary Braun, 67, and Tina Zmaeff, 63, was telexed to the National Parole Board review committee in Ottawa Tuesday in hope of overturning a parole denial issued last week.

Both moves came out of an emergency meeting here Tuesday of about 50 Doukhobors and representatives from the RCMP, Corrections Canada and the attorney general's ministry to see what could be done to help the pair, now in the 72nd day of a hunger strike.

The five-hour meeting, begun and ended with prayer, was at times heated. After just an hour, Orthodox Doukhobor leader John Verigin threw up his hands and left the room with his representatives.

"There's no point in continuing," a red-faced Verigen yelled to the others, mostly Freedomite Doukhobors. "You talk all over the place."

Verigin rejected a proposal by the Freedomite delegation to have the women released into his Orthodox community, the largest of the three Doukhobor sects.

Both the Freedomites and the Reformed group have taken responsibility for the women when they have been paroled previously. But Verigin, an Order of Canada holder, suggested an old folks home would be a better place for the women.

Corrections official Jim Bartlett said, however, the women have indicated they would still consider an old folks home a prison and may not resume eating.

Greg Cran, the attorney general's Doukhobor liaison officer, said he doesn't think there's the same wide-spread community support for the women's release as in past years because of Zmaeff and Braun's record of parole violations.

"I don't like to say it, but they're blackmailing the community into doing something though its never quite clear what it is they want," Cran said.

Orthodox Doukhobor Jim Popoff said the women are violating the Doukhobor faith by committing suicide, which sparked angry reactions from others at the meeting.

"These women are holding a gun to our heads and saying to all of Canada, do what I say or else," Popoff said.

But Polly Chernoff, a reformed Doukhobor and Braun's sister-in-law, said the system is killing the women.

"Please put them to a wall and shoot them and put them out of their misery," she pleaded.

RCMP are investigating three separate arsons - believed to part of a protest over the women's imprisonment - Monday in the Grand Forks area.