Hunger strikers in Cuba's cruel jails

Miami Herald.com
Posted on Wed, Sep. 28, 2005

Hunger strikers in Cuba's cruel jails

OUR OPINION: WORLD SHOULD PRESSURE REGIME TO FREE POLITICAL PRISONERS

Political prisoners continue to suffer in Cuba, and they must not be forgotten. Now, at least three of them are on hunger strikes protesting horrendous conditions when they should never have been locked up in the first place. They're being punished for demanding political reforms and democracy. Indeed, the regime's more than 300 political prisoners are subjected to cruel treatment for doing what is legal in any free country. No effort should be spared by the international community to demand their release.

25-year sentences
The three hunger strikers were among 75 activists railroaded during the regime's Spring 2003 crackdown on dissent. They, like even once-healthy dissidents, have been sickened by contaminated food and water, excessive heat, filthy conditions and medical mistreatment. They are:

� Christian Liberation Movement member Jos� Daniel Ferrer, who hasn't eaten for 22 days as of today. He is serving a 25-year sentence for promoting the Varela Project, a constitutional petition calling for free elections, civil liberties and freedom for political prisoners. He recently was placed in a prison unit with dangerous common criminals, a tactic that Cuban authorities use to harass and injure political prisoners.

� V�ctor Rolando Arroyo, an independent journalist and librarian, has been on a hunger strike for 16 days. In 2000 he spent six months in jail for giving out toys to children on Three Kings Day. Now he is serving a 26-year sentence. His wife says that he has been hospitalized. He has refused forced feeding and is severely dehydrated.

� F�lix Navarro, a democracy advocate and Varela Project activist, has shared the hunger strike for 16 days in solidarity with Mr. Arroyo, who is in the same prison. Mr. Navarro is serving a 25-year term.

The wives of Mr. Arroyo and Mr. Navarro protested that they have been deprived of all contact with them for four months: no phone calls, no mail and no medication packages allowed for the prisoners. Nor have the wives been allowed visits after traveling from their Pinar del R�o homes to the prison in Guant�namo, on the other extreme of the island.

Brutal as ever
Last year the regime conditionally released 14 political prisoners and got what it wanted: The European Union, pushed by Spain's Zapatero government, lifted sanctions that had been imposed after the 2003 crackdown. Yet the regime is no less brutal today. Indeed, since July a new repressive wave is underway.

Now it's incumbent on the EU and Spanish government to revisit their policies. More important, they and other international players must pressure the regime to unconditionally release the political prisoners who should never have been jailed.