Cuba hunger striker recovering after collapse
Cuban opposition activist Guillermo Farinas is helped to stand up by doctor Ismel Iglesias at his home in Santa Clara, Cuba, March 10, 2010. Farina, who has been in hunger strike for two weeks, said that he is ready to die if President Raul Castro doesn’t release 26 seriously ill political prisoners. Photograph by: Adalberto Roque, AFP/Getty Images
HAVANA – Cuban dissident hunger striker Guillermo Farinas collapsed and was rushed to a hospital on Thursday, but appeared to be recovering as doctors administered fluids intravenously, his spokeswoman said.
He regained consciousness while being treated in the intensive care unit of a hospital near his home in Santa Clara, 270 km southeast of Havana, spokeswoman Licet Zamora told Reuters in a telephone interview.
Farinas, 48, stopped eating and drinking on Feb. 24, a day after the death of political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo following an 85-day hunger strike, which touched off an international outcry against Cuba that has yet to end.
The European Parliament, the elected body of the 27-nation European Union, on Thursday condemned the island’s communist government for the “avoidable and cruel” death of Zapata and expressed concern at the “alarming state” of Farinas.
He collapsed last week, but said he recovered after eight liters of fluids were fed into his body.
The freelance journalist, who has conducted 22 previous hunger strikes, has said he is ready to die if the Cuban government does not concede to his demands that 26 political prisoners in ill health be released.
His death likely would bring more international repercussions for Cuba, but the government took a tough stance this week, saying in a story on Monday in the state-run press that it would not be “blackmailed” by him nor held responsible for his death if it comes.
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