CUBA: A leading Cuban dissident launches a hunger strike, accusing the government of attacks and harassment of dissidents.

Record ID: 341008

  • Title: CUBA: A leading Cuban dissident launches a hunger strike, accusing the government of attacks and harassment of dissidents.
  • Date: 11th September 2012
  • Summary: HAVANA, CUBA (SEPTEMBER 10, 2012) (REUTERS) CUBAN DISSIDENT MARTA BEATRIZ ROQUE, ACCOMPANIED BY OTHER DISSIDENTS, ENTERING HER HOUSE WITH PRO-GOVERNMENT POSTERS AND A PHOTO OF FIDEL CASTRO PAINTED ON THE WALL IN FRONT OF HER HOUSE VARIOUS OF ROQUE SPEAKING ON THE PHONE (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) CUBAN DISSIDENT MARTA BEATRIZ ROQUE SAYING: "Today I began a hunger strike with 1
  • Embargoed: 26th September 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Cuba
  • Country: Cuba
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA6UL7G8SRX1M04T0FVVYKWG6JU
  • Story Text: Prominent Cuban dissident Marta Beatriz Roque began a hunger strike on Monday (September 10) along with 12 others to bring attention to what she described as the government's persecution of its opponents.
    She accused the government of conducting a vicious campaign of attacks and harassment against dissidents that has worsened in recent months.
    She also demanded the freeing of Jorge Vazquez Chaviano, who she said was a dissident who was denied release on Monday despite completing a year-long sentence for economic crimes. Vazquez is among those joining her hunger strike.

    "Today I began a hunger strike with 12 other people. There are six of us on the street and seven who are in prison, including the case of Jorge Vazquez Chaviano. And we have begun this hunger strike to demand exclusively that we get the same justice as the government," she told Reuters from her home in Havana.
    Roque was among 75 dissidents imprisoned in a 2003 crackdown on the opposition that drew international condemnation.
    She was sentenced to 20 years in prison for "acts against the independence or territorial integrity of the state," but was released on parole the following year due to health problems.
    Under President Raul Castro, authorities have not been sending dissidents to jail for long terms, but harass and intimidate them with brief detentions and assaults, government opponents say.
    Roque, an economist who became a dissident in 1989 and for years was one of the opposition's most visible leaders, told Reuters she hoped her hunger strike would draw international attention and force the government to stop harassing opponents.

    "We are telling the world to wake up. To wake up to what is happening to the opposition in Cuba. We are saying 'don't look at all of this as if it were unusual.' No it's routine to finish the opposition. It's routine all of these days for the totalitarian government to end the Cuban opposition and I believe that we only have within ourselves the ability to think differently from the government," she said.
    Roque, who is 67, vowed to refuse medications and to only drink water, which could bring a quick death, she said, because she suffers from chronic diabetes.
    The Cuban government views dissidents as "mercenaries" for its long-time ideological enemy, the United States.
    The island's opposition is small, but gets support from the U.S. and other countries.
    Hunger strikes have been a common tactic by opponents to try to garner support from outside the country.
    In 2010, imprisoned dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo, 42, died after an 85-day hunger strike, which brought international condemnation and contributed to Castro's decision to free political prisoners, including those still jailed from the 2003 crackdown, later that year in a deal brokered by the Catholic Church.
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