CubaNet quotes a doctor in Santa Clara, Cuba, as saying that Cuban independent journalist Guillermo Fariñas, on hunger strike since Jan. 31, is in "delicate" condition and that his prognosis is poor.
According to Dr. Julio Sánchez Hernández, Fariñas, who recently had a fever of 102.2 F, is suffering from migranes, lost of feeling in his extremities and urinary sepsis. During his hunger strike, Fariñas has lost 40 pounds, from 174 pounds to 134 pounds, according to the CubaNet report.
Fariñas, who has vowed to take his protest to the "final consequences," is reported as being conscious and in good spirits, according to CubaNet.
Fariñas, a psychologist and editor of the Cubanacán news service, began his protest after Cuban authorities blocked him from using the Internet to transmit his stories to the outside world.
To read CubaNet's complete report, in Spanish, go here.
Fariñas is standing up to a tyrant by putting his life on the line for a right that many of us who use the Internet to gather and spread information sometimes take for granted. And the world barely notices.
Help break the silence, and show your support for Fariñas, by signing this petition.
CubaNet also reports that imprisoned dissident Léster González Pentón on Friday began a hunger strike to protest harassment of his mother and mother-in-law by the police and other Castro functionaries. González — who at age 29 is the youngest of the "Group of 75" dissidents arrested during the "black spring" crackdown of March 2003 — is vice president of Movimiento pro Democracia Alfa 3. He is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
Last fall, CubaNet — in a story authored by no one less than Guillermo Fariñas — reported that González lost his conjugal rights because he refused to attend Communist indoctrination classes in prison.
"I am an internationally recognized prisoner of conscience, imprisoned unjustly because of my way of thinking, but I refuse to be indoctrinated in Communist policies which I do not accept, even if this means I can no longer see my relatives," he said.
To read the latest on González from CubaNet, in Spanish, go here.
González is at least the second imprisoned Cuban dissident currently on a hunger strike. Last week, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported that independent journalist Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta was on hunger strike to protest conditions at his prison.
Recent Comments