Fariñas under house arrest

Guillermo Fariñas

There are many reasons to admire Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas. He is an outstanding journalist but also, as he again showed today, an outstanding Cuban, one of the finest and bravest patriots in the opposition to dictatorship and tyranny.

Fariñas, according to Marti Noticias, was under house arrest tonight, after he was picked up by police for urging residents in Villa Clara not to vote in today's municipal "elections." In the current environment on the island, when the dictatorship is trying to make a big public relations splash with its "elections," there are few acts more patriotic than a Cuban encouraging his fellow citizens to stay away from the polls.

Fariñas told Radio Marti that at about noon today, a police Lt. Col. Ramon Alvarez ordered him into a police car, and drove him around the city. The whole time, according to Fariñas, he was treated professionally before being dropped off at his home.

There, Alvarez told the journalist that he was under house arrest, and that his home was being monitored by police officers standing on adjacent street corners. Also on alert were the neighborhood snitches with the Committee in Defense of the Revolution and the Association of the Combatants of the Revolution.

Meanwhile, the man ultimately behind Fariñas' detention, keeps mumbling away.