Successful Hunger Strike by Cuban Political Prisoner

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Successful Hunger Strike by Cuban Political Prisoner
By Cuban Democratic Directorate

Political Prisoner Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia

Las Tunas. Cuban Democratic Directorate. June 11, 2008. Cuban political prisoner and prisoner of conscience José Daniel Ferrer García successfully completed a hunger strike of more than a week’s duration when prison authorities accepted his demand for an improvement in the conditions in which he is being unjustly held. According to a statement by the Christian Liberation Movement (CLM) of which Ferrer García is a member, he declared his hunger strike upon being transferred to a punishment cell in El Típico prison in Las Tunas Province from Guantánamo Provincial Prison. In the weeks leading up to the punitive transfer, Ferrer García had protested strongly on several occasions about abuses by guards and the inhumane conditions of Cuban prisons. One such incident was recorded over the telephone by human rights activist Juan Carlos González Leiva in Havana on May 20, 2008.

Upon arriving at El Típico, guards told Ferrer García that he was going to be locked up in a cell block with highly dangerous common prisoners with the intention that they World attack and mistreat him, the MCL statement went on to say. Additionally, the transfer considerably increased the distance separating the prisoner from his family.

According to his sister, Ana Belkis Ferrer García, “José Daniel has truly been reduced to a terrible state. The pain he felt in his stomach was unbearable. He bent over and placed his hands on his stomach because he could not bear the pain. Part of his body is raw flash because he is being consumed by scabies. The rest of his body is covered with a rash of welts as if he had the measles, but that are caused by mosquito bites. He had been in a punishment cell since Wednesday June 4th after having been in a cell at the El Salvador police unit in Guantánamo in indescribable conditions. He remained in that state, with the same clothes, filthy, infested, full of germs, foul-smelling, and spent those days on hunger strike without bathing, taking only sips of water because even taking water causes him great difficulty.”

Ana Belkis, who conducted a sit-in in front of the prison along with Jose Daniel’s wife Belkis Cantillo Ramírez and his sister-in-law Milka María Peña Martínez, was able to see him for five minutes on June 9. Ferrer García and his family continue to monitor the fulfillment of the promises made by prison authorities, among them the provision of a mattress, since the prisoner has been sleeping on a mat of crushed sugar cane stalks infested with insects.

The State Security lieutenant colonel known as “Modesto” attempted to excuse the inhumane conditions suffered by Ferrer García, stating that the prison was “very much behind because, really, in these years no political prisoners or prisoners of conscience have passed through it,” according to Ana Belkis, who relayed the substance of the conversation in a statement to Radio República.

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