LatinNews Daily Report - 14 September 2012

CUBA | Cuban dissident vows to continue hunger strike. Martha Beatriz Roque, a Cuban opposition economist, vowed on 13 September to continue her three-day hunger strike in protest at the government’s failure to release from prison a fellow dissident (Jorge Vázquez Chaviano) and its alleged recent escalation in repressive actions against dissidents. Roque, 67, is one of the best known Cuban opposition economists and dissidents. She was the only woman among the so-called ‘Group of 75’ rounded up and thrown in jail by the former president Fidel Castro (1959-2008) in the ‘Black Spring’ crackdown of 2003. She was released after a year on health grounds and continues to suffer from hypertension and diabetes. Reportedly, she was taken very ill with vomiting, diarrhoea and heart palpitations on Wednesday (12 September).  Yesterday she insisted she would continue, despite pleas by other dissidents to stop. Elizardo Sánchez, president of the illegal but tolerated Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, noted, “It is very dangerous to go on hunger strike here, because the current Cuban regime allows strikers to die”. Two imprisoned dissidents, Orlando Zapata Tamayo and Wilman Villar Mendoza died following lengthy hunger strikes in 2010 and earlier this year, respectively. The government led by President Raúl Castro denies the existence of political prisoners in Cuba.

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