Hunger Strikes
On April 3, 1972, Pedro Luis Boitel, an imprisoned poet and dissident, declared himself on hunger strike. After 53 days on hunger strike without receiving medical assistance and receiving only liquids, he died of starvation on May 25, 1972. His last days were related by his close friend, poet Armando Valladares. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the Cólon Cemetery in Havana.
Guillermo Fariñas did a seven-month hunger strike to protest against the extensive Internet censorship in Cuba. He ended it in Autumn 2006, with severe health problems although still conscious. Reporters Without Borders awarded its cyber-freedom prize to Guillermo Fariñas in 2006.
Jorge Luis García Pérez (known as Antúnez) has done hunger strikes. In 2009, following the end of his 17-year imprisonment, Antúnez, his wife Iris, and Diosiris Santana Pérez started a hunger strike to support other political prisoners. Leaders from Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Argentina declared their support for Antúnez.
In 2012 Wilmar Villar Mendoza passed away after a 50+ day hunger strike.
Read more about this topic: Cuban Dissidents
Famous quotes containing the words hunger and/or strikes:
“... it is only after years and years that you can speak of penury in the midst of opulence, of hunger in the midst of almost sinful plenty. You must never speak of the immediate experience unless and until you have learned its consequent value. Otherwise you grow old in bitterness which is barren and futile....”
—E. M. Almedingen (b. 1898–?)
“Television thrives on unreason, and unreason thrives on television. It strikes at the emotions rather than the intellect.”
—Robin, Sir Day (b. 1915)