Luis Enrique Ferrer
Alexis Rodríguez FernándezCuban political prisoners Luis Enrique Ferrer García, Alexis Rodríguez Fernández and Agustín Cervantes García on Friday, April 28, began a hunger strike to protest poor health care, violation of basic rights and other abuses in prison, Ferrer's wife told the Cuban Foundation on Human Rights.
CubaNet has the details, in Spanish.
Ferrer, 29, was the youngest of the Group of 75 independent journalists, human rights activists and other dissidents arrested during the "black spring" of 2003. A member of the Christian Liberation Movement, Ferrer also received the longest sentence among the Group of 75 — 28 years.
In 2004, Human Rights First wrote of Ferrer:
Luis Enrique Ferrer organized groups of people who were able to collect hundreds of signatures for the Varela Project, a peaceful civic initiative calling for a national referendum on basic rights. As a result of the work of organizers like Luis Enrique Ferrer and his older brother, independent journalist José Daniel Ferrer, the broad-based coalition of organizers presented, at great personal risk, more than 11,000 signatures to the National Assembly just days before former U.S. President Jimmy Carter visited the island and mentioned the signature campaign in an uncensored telecast. Since then over 30,000 signatures are reported to have been collected in spite of the risk of official reprisals faced by organizers and signatories.
Rodriguez, 36, is also a member of the Christian Liberation Movement. Arrested during "the black spring," he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Also a member of the Christian Liberation Movement, Cervantes, 31, was arrested in November 2002 and sentenced to four years in prison.
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