Guillermo Fariñas vows to continue protest, even if it kills him.
The most remarkable aspect of Guillermo Fariñas' now-91-day hunger strike is that from the beginning he has demanded nothing for himself. Instead, his protest has been on behalf of some two dozen seriously ill prisoners languishing in the Castro gulag.
They may be forgotten by many in the world, but they have always had Fariñas as their champion.
So it is no surprise that even now, as the families of the prisoners and others wonder how exactly an arrangement between the government and the Catholic Church to improve conditions for some prisoners will be implemented, Fariñas is staying true to his original demand:
The release of the most seriously ill political prisoners.
Anything less, and his hunger strike will go
Fariñas, a psychologist and independent journalist, reaffirmed his intent to continue his protest, as he struggles in a Cuban hospital to recover from a vicious kidney infection brought on by his protest. Since Feb. 24, he hasn't eaten any food or drank any water, his only sustenance being what's running through his veins from an IV.
Fariñas told Europa Press he will not be satisfied if improved conditions for political prisoners stop with the transfer of some of them to hospitals or to prisons closer to their homes. A Catholic Church official informed Fariñas over this past weekend that the Castro dictatorship had agreed to such moves, starting this week, after talks between Raúl Castro and Cardinal Jaime Ortega.
The fact that Fariñas received such a visit at his hospital bed is testament to what his protest has already accomplished, that it has not been a futile effort, that he is not a man to be ignored.
If the government does not parole the ill prisoners, Fariñas vowed to continue with his hunger strike "because I didn't start this protest for transfers, but to demand the release of prisoners of conscience with health problems."
(H/T Penultimos Días, via Twitter)
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