Hunger Strikes for Jailed Cuban Journalist

Four Cubans have launched hunger strikes to press for the release of journalist Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias, held for six months without trial.

Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez, director of the independent news agency Hablemos Press, for which Martínez Arias reported, began a hunger strike on April 8, according to a press release from the agency. Three dissidents in Camagüey province – Daniel Millet Jiménez, Fernando Vázquez Guerra and Misael Canet Velázquez – are also refusing food.

Last month, Martínez Arias spent 22 days on hunger strike in prison, ending his protest on March 28 after prison officials told him he would be released within a few days. (See Hopes of Freedom for Cuban Journalist.)

He was transferred from the Combinado del Este prison to the Valle Grande facility on April 5, in a move that the authorities said would be a precursor to his release, but there is no sign of that happening.

The journalist told Guerra Pérez that if he was not freed within ten days, he would resume his protest. Guerra Perez decided to join him as an act of solidarity.

Martínez Arias was arrested in September last year and accused of insulting Cuba’s past and present leaders, Fidel and Raúl Castro. No trial date has been set and his lawyer has been denied access to prosecution case files.

Hablemos Press reports that two prisoners who provided information on Martínez Arias’s health, Jorge Bello Domínguez and Alexander Roberto Fernández Rico, have also been moved from Combinado del Este to prisons in Pinar Del Río and Holguín, respectively.

Dana Sants is the pseudonym of a freelance reporter in Mexico.

This article first appeared on IWPR's website.