BY: CAPITOL HILL CUBANS
Pursuant to this story, Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas was brutally arrested for a third time this week. He has since been hospitalized.
The picture below speaks for itself.
From Reuters:
Prominent Cuban dissident defiant after detentions
A well-known Cuban dissident vowed on Friday to defy the threat of another arrest after he was detained for the second time in less than 24 hours in central Santa Clara province.
Guillermo Farinas, a psychologist and writer, garnered international attention last year by staging a 135-day hunger strike to demand improved treatment for political prisoners and the release of those who he said were ill.
His hunger strike followed the death of imprisoned fellow hunger striker Orlando Zapata. Farinas was eventually hospitalized and fed intravenously but refused to take any solid food until Cuba began to release political prisoners as part of an agreement with the Roman Catholic Church and Spain.
Farinas, the winner last year of the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, was first arrested and held for six hours on Wednesday when he and a group of other activists tried to stop the eviction of a family from an abandoned building.
They were arrested again on Thursday as they marched to a local police station where three associates, picked up that morning, were being held.
Despite the detentions, Farinas said he and his fellow activists would march on Friday to a statue of independence hero Jose Marti, ignoring warnings they would be arrested again.
Cuba is currently paying homage to Marti, who was born 158 years ago on January 27.
"I told them (the police) we planned to go out with flowers for Marti and they said they would arrest us for a third time," Farinas said in a telephone interview soon after his release.
He said the protests were aimed at the dire economic and social situation in the communist-led country, which has suffered in recent years from hurricanes, the international financial crisis and economic management problems.
"They (the local authorities) said ... they were not going to let us do anything on the street. In reality they are scared the people will go into the streets," Farinas said.
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