Afghan police have taken a woman politician to hospital and dismantled the tent where she observed a 12-day hunger strike to protest against being disqualified from parliament, officials said Friday.
Semin Barakzai, a 30-year-old mother of three and one of nine MPs expelled from the national assembly over vote-rigging claims, had refused to eat until she is reinstated to her parliamentary seat or her case is re-investigated.
But there had been growing concerns for her health even as a woman MP and four students joined Barakzai in her hunger strike on Wednesday.
"Afghan police forces last night removed the tent of the ousted lawmaker from parliament, Semin Barakzai, to call off her strike," Kabul police spokesman Hashmat Stanikzai told AFP.
Barakzai was taken to hospital by ambulance late Thursday and was in a stable condition, added the spokesman.
Hunger strikes, particularly by women, are unusual in Afghanistan, a deeply conservative male-dominated society.
Police went into her tent unarmed and asked Barakzai to go to the hospital, before removing the tent "without facing any negative response from Barakzai and her relatives", Stanikzai added.
Neither Barakzai nor her relatives were immediately reachable for comment.
She and eight other members of the Wolesi Jirga were kicked out by the Independent Election Commission last August in an attempt to resolve nearly a year of disputes over widespread graft in September 2010 parliamentary polls.
The powerful council of Afghanistan's Islamic clerics issued a fatwa saying that rejecting food was against Islam.
Fazil Ahmad Manawi, the head of the Independent Election Commission also called on Barakzai to end the hunger strike, saying the body was not authorised to return her to the parliament.
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