Cuban political prisoner Manuel Pérez Soria has been diagnosed with beriberi, according to a report posted at Misceláneas de Cuba.
In the report, written by journalist Mario Hechavarria Driggs, Belinda Salas Tapanes, president of Plantados Until Liberty and Democracy in Cuba, said she had talked with Pérez. He told her that a doctor at the Combinado de la Construcción Augusto César Sandino prison had diagnosed beriberi after he lost considerable amount of weight and had fungal infections on his hands, feet and genitals. The disease, which is caused by a lack of Vitamin B, can lead to digestive upheavals, paralysis, edemas, and insufficient cardiac function.
Pérez "has not changed his attitude that he is a plantado until there is freedom in Cuba," Salas said. "It is because of that that I appeal to international public opinion, human rights organizations and all men of goodwill that they intercede on behalf of the life of this brave compatriot, who has only asked for justice and respect for human rights."
(In Cuba, a plantado is a political prisoner who remains firmly "planted" in opposition to the Castro regime and committed to their beliefs and principles.)
Pérez has been imprisoned since July 13, 2005, when he was arrested while attending a memorial on the Malecon for the victims of the Cuban military's massacre in 1994 of more than 40 Cubans on the "13th of March" tugboat.
Pérez never has been formally charged with a crime.
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