(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has voiced relief over the decision by imprisoned Cuban journalist Víctor Rolando Arroyo Carmona on 4 October 2005 to end the hunger strike he had begun 25 days earlier, but the organisation stressed that it was still very worried about his state of health. “We are reassured by this news but at […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has voiced relief over the decision by imprisoned Cuban journalist Víctor Rolando Arroyo Carmona on 4 October 2005 to end the hunger strike he had begun 25 days earlier, but the organisation stressed that it was still very worried about his state of health.
“We are reassured by this news but at the same time we stress that prison conditions for Arroyo and the 22 other journalists detained in Cuba continue to be deplorable,” RSF said.
Arroyo’s wife, Elsa González Padrón, was allowed to visit him on 4 October. Doctors told her he was delirious when he was brought to Holguín hospital the day before and thought he was still in Guantánamo prison, in eastern Cuba.
It was only after he finally realised he had been removed from the prison that Arroyo agreed to be put on a drip, thereby ending his hunger strike. One of his demands when starting the hunger strike was to be rid of a Guantánamo prison guard known as Armesto who subjected him to psychological torture.
Arroyo is beginning to eat again little by little, but he is still in critical condition, like Félix Navarro, a political prisoner who began a hunger strike three days after Arroyo and ended it when he was transferred to Bamayo, in the southeastern province of Granma.
While he was still refusing to eat, Arroyo’s response to those who asked him to end his hunger strike was: “I am not gambling with my life, I am trying to save it.” As going on hunger strike often seems like a last chance to make onself heard in desperate situations, RSF has decided to publish a letter of support for Arroyo which fellow journalist Raúl Rivero wrote just before he called off the hunger strike. Rivero, who is also a writer and poet, has been living in exile in Madrid since April.
The text of Rivero’s open letter is available here: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15223
