Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata dies on hunger strike
- From: PL <pl@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:57:49 -0800 (PST)
February 24, 2010
Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata dies on hunger strike
The Cuban political prisoner Orlando Zapata died in hospital
yesterday, 85 days after he went on a hunger strike.
A spokesman for Havana's Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital, where the 42-
year-old political prisoner was transferred from a smaller clinic near
his prison in the eastern province of Camaguey earier this week, said
Zapata died at 1:00 pm (1800 GMT).
"Indignant" dissidents blamed the government for the death of Mr
Zapata, who was jailed in 2003 and deemed a prisoner of conscience by
Amnesty International. He had been on a hunger strike to protest
prison conditions that he blamed for his deteriorating health.
Oswaldo Paya, the leader of the Christian Liberation Movement
dissident group, said the movement was “not seeking martyrs." He said
that Mr Zapata had died "defending the freedom, rights and dignity of
all Cubans".
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In Camaguey, authorities had placed the dissident in a provincial
hospital before he was transferred by ambulance to Hermanos
Ameijeiras, one of the biggest in the capital and outfitted with more
care and surgical options.
Hours before Mr Zapata's death, the banned Cuban Committee for Human
Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) had said his condition was
"very serious."
Early this month, Cuban police harassed, beat and briefly jailed some
35 dissidents marching in Camaguey protesting the "cruel and inhuman
treatment" of Mr Zapata, according to CCDHRN.
The group's director, Elizardo Sanchez, said it was the first time in
nearly 40 years that a Cuban opposition figure has died while on a
hunger strike.
Mr Zapata's demise is "bad news for the human rights movement and for
the government as well," Mr Sanchez said.
In Miami, a Cuban exile group quoted Mr Zapata’s mother as saying
authorities essentially killed her son in Havana.
"They have done him in. My son's death was a premeditated murder,"
Reina Tamayo said in a statement released by the Cuban Democratic
Directorate.
Hector Palacios, one of 75 political prisoners convicted in 2003 and
who had met Mr Zapata in prison, told the AFP news agency that "people
are indignant," and that a national mourning and fasting period was
being considered.
"I'm crushed," said Mr Palacios, who has been released for health
reasons. He added that Mr Zapata "had no alternative but to decide on
the hunger strike. The authorities took no pity on him, they just let
him die."
Mr Zapata was convicted in 2003 for political activities anathema to
the only one-party communist regime in the Americas. He received a
similar sentence to the other 75 dissidents, but while jailed his
sentence was boosted to 25 years in subsequent trials.
The Cuban government denies holding any political prisoners, instead
calling those imprisoned "mercenaries" in the pay of US opponents of
the regime. Dissident sources however put the number of political
prisoners at 200 in a country of more than 11 million.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7038864.ece
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