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Eight prisoners on hunger strike in Guantanamo
By Cuban Democratic Directorate

Guantanamo, Cuba. April 1, 2009. Cuban Democratic Directorate. Eight Cuban political and common prisoners have joined together in a hunger strike since March 19 at Guántanamo Provincial Prison, demanding claiming their right to use the telephone.

According to information provided to the Cuban Democratic Directorate by activists Jorge Corrales Ceballos and Enyor Díaz Allen of the Cuban Youth for Democracy Movement, the prison authorities, particularly officer Iraelio Hernandez, are denying the political prisoners their regulated right to use the telephone for 25 minutes each week.

"We will not allow our rights to be violated with impunity," said young political prisoner and initiator of this protest Isael Poveda Silva, according to Corrales Ceballos in a telephone call to the Directorate.

The strikers are Isael Poveda Silva, Ernesto Durán Rodríguez, Yordis García Fournier, Luis Mariano Delís Utria, Frank Hernández Ferrero, Alexander González Quintana, Yordis Fuentes Pérez and Elvis Pérez González. Poveda Silva, Durán Rodríguez and Hernández Ferrero began the protest on March 19 and have gone without eating for 14 days. García Fournier and Fuentes Pérez joined on March 23, Delis Utria the 25th, and González Quintana together with Pérez González joined the strike on the 27th.