Published on Thursday, April 8, 2010
WASHINGTON, USA (AFP) -- US Senator Robert Menendez spoke by telephone
with Guillermo Farinas, a cyber journalist on a hunger strike in Cuba,
the US politician said on Wednesday.
Farinas has "undertaken tremendous personal risk and sacrifice to simply
expose the ongoing human rights abuses in Cuba," Menendez, the son of
Cuban immigrants, said in a statement.
Farinas began his hunger strike on February 24, one day after learning
of the fate of Orlando Zapata, who died after 85 days without food
protesting prison conditions.
Senator Robert Menendez
"Individuals like Guillermo Farinas and Orlando Zapata Tamayo are
evidence of the unbearable brutality of the Castro regime and the tragic
state of political prisoners in Cuba," said Menendez.
"Guillermo was resolute in his position that the rights of Cuba's
political prisoners must be honored," said Menendez, who represents the
state of New Jersey.
The senator said he spoke to Farinas, currently in a hospital in the
Cuban city of Santa Clara, on Tuesday.
According to the Cuban Commission on Human Rights (CCDHRN), an illegal
but tolerated group on the island, there are some 200 political
prisoners in Cuba.
Cuban President Raul Castro on Sunday vowed never to give in to the
dissidents' demands, calling it "blackmail" organized by the United
States and Europe.
Castro charged the United States and Europe with waging "an
unprecedented publicity war" against Havana allegedly supported by
"major Western media."
"This is a personal problem between myself and Raul Castro," Farinas,
48, told AFP by phone on Wednesday.
"He says that we are mercenaries, and I'm going to show that we are
patriots, willing to die for our ideas," Farinas said.
In Cuba, another political dissident, Franklin Pelegrino, on Wednesday
said that he ended his own 40-day hunger strike supporting Farinas.
"We realize that it's impossible to accomplish anything by this means
with Raul Castro," Pelegrino, 38, told AFP by telephone. "Fellow
opposition activists and relatives asked me to drop the strike."
Farinas told AFP that he will continue his strike "to the final
consequences," but also said he supported Pelegrino's decision.
Separately a doctor named Darsi Ferrer, 40, has been on a hunger strike
since March 20, the CCDHRN said.
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