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Imprisoned journalist threatens
to starve himself to death
Reporters
Without Borders,
July 20, 2005.
Reporters Without Borders voiced alarm
today about the fate of imprisoned journalist
Mario Enrique Mayo Hernández, who
has announced in a message to the organization
that he began a hunger strike on 14 July
and will starve himself to death if he is
not released soon.
The editor of the Felix Varela news agency,
a small independent agency based in the
eastern province of Camagüey, Mayo
Hernández has been in prison since
March 2003.
"We take his warning seriously and
the Cuban government would be well-advised
to do so as well," Reporters Without
Borders said. "Must the government
wait until one of the 21 journalists held
since the Black Spring of 2003 dies before
it finally agrees to release the others
?"
The organisation added : "By committing
himself to an indefinite hunger strike,
Mayo Hernández is representing all
of his fellow-journalists and other dissidents
who have been convicted without cause and
pushed to their limit by more two years
of detention in filthy prisons. His desperate
act calls for an urgent pardon for him and
all the Black Spring's other victims, even
if this means pardoning innocent men."
Mayo Hernández's wife, Maidelin
Guerra Álvarez, yesterday sent Reporters
Without Borders the following message from
her husband :
"I will not wait until the government
deigns to grant the release of 20 detainees
because they are ill or because Fidel Castro
needs to improve his international image.
I have even less intention of waiting 10
or 20 years (…).
"I was imprisoned just for freely
saying what I think and for practising independent
journalism on this island. I have never
lied about human rights violations in Cuba.
This is why I will maintain my hunger strike
until I obtain my freedom or I die. If death
is the price to pay, I am ready to pay it,
but I want the world to know that nothing
short of freedom will now be able to stop
me."
Arrested on 19 March 2003, Mayo Hernández
was sentenced on 4 April 2003 to 20 years
in prison for "threat to the state's
independence or territorial integrity."
He has been transferred from prison to prison
four times since his arrest and has been
in Kilo 7 prison in Camagüey since
21 June.
He has had several spells in prison infirmaries
or hospital because of his many ailments,
which include pulmonary emphysema, high
blood pressure and inflammation of the prostate.
He already went on hunger strike for a month
in November to protest against prison conditions
and mistreatment by guards.
Reporters Without Borders defends imprisoned
journalists and press freedom throughout
the world, as well as the right to inform
the public and to be informed, in accordance
with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights. Reporters Without Borders
has nine national sections (in Austria,
Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain,
Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom),
representatives in Abidjan, Bangkok, Istanbul,
Montreal, Moscow, New York, Tokyo and Washington
and more than a hundred correspondents worldwide.
Versión
original en español
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