Political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer García has abandoned his 8-day-long hunger strike, after officials at the “El Tipico” prison in Las Tunas returned his personal belongings and promised he would be treated better, according to a news release from the Christian Liberation Movement. Ferrer, an activist with the MCL, started his protest after he was transferred to El Tipico from a prison in Guantánamo.
In a previous post, I lamented how Cuban political prisoners get very little attention, even when they put their lives at risk by going on hunger strike. But at least in this case, international attention is getting some of the credit for forcing Cuban prison authorities to loosen its oppression of Ferrer.
The MCL news release states:
The Christian Liberation Movement wishes to thank news agencies, other media, politicians, institutions and the general population for the immediate dissemination of and solidarity they have shown with the situation of our brother Jose Daniel, as they often do with other prisoners of conscience unjustly imprisoned in Cuba.
We are certain that this solidarity sooner or later reaches even to those in the most obscure of the punishment cells and becomes the encouragement that allows them to survive.
H/T Carlos Payá, via e-mail.
(Cross-posted at Uncommon Sense.)