Cuban political prisoner Juan Luis Rodríguez Desdin has been on a hunger strike since July 14, to protest officials' refusal to let him make telephone calls and send and receive mail, according to a report from independent journalist Carlos Serpa Maceira.
Former political prisoner Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez," president of the Pedro Luis Boitel Political Prisoner Movement, implored the international community to stand with Rodríguez.
"The Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoner organization is issuing a wake-up call to alert international organizations and democratic governments to pressure the Castro regime so that this emblematic political prisoner is restored the human rights to which he is entitled," Antúnez said.
Rodríguez in May was sentenced to 2 years in prison, after he was convicted of "disrespect" and "resistance." He had been arrested after someone assaulted and injured him while he was walking in the town of Banes, in eastern Cuba.
That's right. Someone assaulted him, and for that Rodríguez, who at the time was a delegate for the Pedro Luis Boitel Political Prisoner Movement, was arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to time in the gulag.
More people, on and off the island, need to follow Antúnez's example and protest this injustice, so that we can save Rodríguez's life.
Read my Political Prisoner of the Week profile of Rodríguez, here.
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