(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is alarmed about the state of health of two imprisoned journalists who are on hunger strike, Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta and Guillermo Fariñas Hernández. RSF calls for a humanitarian gesture from the Cuban authorities and for foreign embassies in Havana to intercede. “How are we to interpret this indifference […]
(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is alarmed about the state of health of two imprisoned journalists who are on hunger strike, Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta and Guillermo Fariñas Hernández. RSF calls for a humanitarian gesture from the Cuban authorities and for foreign embassies in Havana to intercede.
“How are we to interpret this indifference to the agony of two individuals who are simply demanding the right to express their views and to surf the Internet freely?” the press freedom organisation said. “And what danger could possibly come from two people who have been so physically and psychologically weakened?”
“The silence from the authorities could reinforce the feeling of many prisoners and dissidents that they have nothing to lose, and could thereby encourage more hunger strikes. We reiterate our appeal to the Cuban government for clemency and we urge the foreign embassies in Havana to monitor the cases of Herrera and Fariñas closely,” added RSF.
The Miami-based website Cubanet reports that Herrera, who has been on a hunger strike for 23 days in his prison cell in Kilo 8 prison in the eastern city of Camagüey, sewed up his mouth in a new gesture of protest on 23 March 2006. According to Juan Carlos González Leyva, the head of the Cuban Foundation for Human Rights, Herrera did this after being badly beaten by guards for two days running, on 21 and 22 March.
Herrera, who worked for an independent news agency called the Agencia de Prensa Libre Oriental (APLO), is serving a 20-year prison sentence which he received after being arrested during the March 2003 crackdown. Held in solitary confinement, he has for some time suffered from high blood pressure and gastritis but has not been receiving appropriate treatment.
Dr. Julio Sánchez Hernández, of an independent medical institute in the central province of Santa Clara, told Cubanet on 19 March that Fariñas’s condition had become much worse and said that he was very concerned and pessimistic about the journalist’s chances of survival. Fariñas is suffering from bouts of fever, violent migraines and loss of feeling in his legs.
Fariñas began refusing to eat and drink on 31 January to demand Internet access for all Cubans, interrupting his hunger strike on occasion to receive medical treatment.
