Cuban political prisoner Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta on Aug. 31 resumed a hunger strike, to protest the continued violation of his human rights.
Reporters Without Borders reports:
Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta of the Agencia de Prensa Libre Oriental (APLO) told his family in a phone call on 2 September that he had been on hunger strike since 31 August in protest against the conditions to which he is being subjected in Holguín prison: his visit time has been reduced to one 30-minute visit every three months, his correspondence is being confiscated, he is not allowed out of his cell and he is not getting access to proper treatment. He is also demanding a transfer to a prison in the southeastern province of Guantánamo, where he is from. Herrera is serving a 20-year sentence and his health has deteriorated a great deal since his arrest in the March 2003 “Black Spring” crackdown. He sewed up his mouth on 21 July during a previous hunger strike.
Herrera's complaints about his mistreatment are common among prisoners in the gulag. But it is important to note — how important remains to be determined — but other political prisoners, including some of the others arrested during the "black spring," have recently been transferred to jails closer to their homes and their families.
For more on Herrera's previous protest, read here, here here.
And for more, in Spanish, on his current protest, read here.
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