For Immediate Release:
Friday, March 11, 2011
Amnesty International Urges Cuba to Release
Prisoner of Conscience on Hunger Strike
Contact: Wende Gozan Brown, wgozan@aiusa.org, 212-633-4247
(London) - Amnesty International today called on Cuban authorities to
release an activist on hunger strike who was detained for his human
rights work three months ago and faces trial at the end of March.
Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina, the president and co-founder of the Cuban
Youth Movement for Democracy, was arrested last December in relation to
a meeting he organized at his home in August 2010 and for
anti-government banners he displayed outside his home.
Néstor, his brother Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina and three other members of
the Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy - Enyor Díaz Allen, Roberto
González Pelegrín and Francisco Manzanet - have been charged with public
order offenses relating to an attack on his home by a mob opposed to the
meeting. The five men were arrested in August 2010 and released the
following month. Only Rodriguez Lobaina was arrested again.
"Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina has spent more than three months in prison for
expressing his opinions, defending democracy and promoting human rights
in Cuba. Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience
jailed solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression and is
calling on the Cuban authorities to release him immediately and
unconditionally, or bear the responsibility of the impact of the hunger
strike on Néstor's physical integrity," said Gerardo Ducos of Amnesty
International. "Néstor imprisonment is yet another example of the
suppression of the rights to freedom of expression and association in Cuba."
Held at Combinado de Guantánamo prison, Rodríguez Lobaina started his
hunger strike on February 15. The next day he was transferred to an
isolation cell and denied water for eight days. Rodríguez Lobaina's
health deteriorated during his hunger strike and on February 28 he was
transferred to a health post in the prison. He was then transferred to
Augustino Neto Provincial Hospital on March 1.
Rodríguez Lobaina was arrested again by state security agents in
Guantanamo on December 9, 2010. He was pepper sprayed and pushed roughly
into a police car in front of his 10-year-old daughter who was left
alone in the street as her father was taken into custody. While in
detention Néstor says he has suffered beatings and threats from other
inmates.
Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist
organization with more than 3 million supporters, activists and
volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human rights
worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates
and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice,
freedom, truth and dignity are denied.
http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGUSA20110311001&lang=e
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