Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas released

Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas was arrested and beaten on Tuesday when he visited the hospital where hunger striking opposition member Alcides Rivera is being treated to offer support. Yesterday, after complaining of pain caused by the beating he received, the Castro dictatorship finally released Fariñas so he could seek medical treatment.

Via the Latin American Herald Tribune:

Cuban Opposition Activist Freed

HAVANA – Leading dissident Guillermo Fariñas was released without charges Thursday from a jail in the central Cuban city of Santa Clara after spending two days in custody, he told Efe by telephone from his home.

He said the episode began Tuesday when he went to Arnaldo Milian Castro Provincial Hospital to visit fellow dissident Alcides Rivera, who has been on hunger strike for month then a month.

Fariñas, a psychologist, said he produced his health service identification at the hospital entrance, but was confronted by vigilantes “in a very hostile stance who told me I wasn’t going to come in.”

“I demanded to enter by virtue of still being a member of the national health system, because they have not dismissed me, and when I wanted to pass they beat me, they broke my umbrella and my watch, though the hospital director asked them not to mistreat me,” the dissident recounted to Efe.

“They called a police patrol, I was handcuffed and taken to the fifth unit,” the 49-year-old Fariñas said.

Complaining of pain in his back and head, he said police told him on his release that he could go to the hospital and that the vigilantes who attacked him “were punished administratively.”