Dying Cuban prisoner finds new life in Miami
By JUAN CARLOS CHAVEZ
jcchavez@ElNuevoHerald.com
Nearly seven months after arriving in Miami in a wheelchair — wasted to
the bone from malnutrition — former Cuban political prisoner Ariel
Sigler Amaya has taken his first steps after a long stretch of paralysis.
Sigler, 47, walked for a few minutes at Jackson Memorial Hospital this
week, a victory for someone who was on the brink of death.
"Here, before all my brothers in the opposition, I promise to put aside
the wheelchair as of this moment," Sigler said.
Sigler has been in rehabilitation since July 28 as he recovers from the
aggressive neuropathy he suffered in Cuban prisons. The ailment
diminishes sensitivity in his body.
As the leader of the Alternative Option movement, Sigler was one of the
75 people jailed in a 2003 raid known as Black Spring, a wave of arrests
and summary trials of peaceful opponents and independent journalists.
WEIGHT DROP
Sigler said he did not receive specialized care in prison, and his
weight dropped to 117 pounds from 205. Before his 20-year sentence, he
was an impressive speciment as amateur boxer in his youth.
He's working his way back to that vigor.
Flanked by his brother, Miguel Sigler, also a former political prisoner,
and Josefa López, his sister-in-law, Sigler was transformed from weak
dissident to determined activist.
"Every time people saw me, I was in a wheelchair," Sigler said. "So now
you can tell that I am six feet tall."
Orando Rodríguez, associate director of internal medicine at Jackson
Memorial Hospital, said Sigler's perseverance has made a difference.
"Getting him out of death's claws and turning him into the normal
individual he once was gives us great pride," Rodríguez said. "The
process was arduous but his recovery has been successful. We are not
100-percent there yet, but Sigler is a strong person. In one or two
months he will be the person he was before."
IN PRISON
Sigler's treatment in prison prompted protests by exiles and human
rights groups. He was detained in various prisons in Ciego de Avila,
Villa Clara and Cienfuegos, far from his home in Matanzas.
In late 2008 he was hospitalized in Havana with a series of problems,
including esophagitis and kidney stones.
Sigler was sentenced under the Protection of the National Independence
and the Economy Law in Cuba, put into place in 1999 to punish dissidents
who acted "against the state's security and order."
Miguel Saavedra, leader of the anti-Castro group Vigilia Mambisa,
saluted Sigler's rehabilitation and said his treatment in a U.S.
hospital "demonstrates" that medicine in Cuba is no good.
"It's behind and does not make progress," Saavedra said. "But I am happy
because other former prisoners and exiles are receiving medical care.
This means there is international pressure on Castro's tyranny."
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/09/2107000/dying-cuban-prisoner-finds-new.html
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