"REPORTING FROM MEXICO CITY -- A Cuban dissident serving a four-year prison term has died after staging a hunger strike to protest his incarceration, human rights groups say.
Wilman Villar, 31, died Thursday night in a hospital where authorities had transferred him after he fell ill, apparently from the effects of a seven-week hunger strike. His widow, Maritza Pelegrino Cabrales, told Human Rights Watch that prison guards had placed Villar naked in solitary confinement in a small, cold cell. Cuban rights activists said he succumbed to pneumonia.
"The responsibility for Wilman Villar Mendoza's death in custody lies squarely with the Cuban authorities, who summarily judged and jailed him for exercising his right to freedom of expression," Javier Zuniga, special advisor at Amnesty International, said in a statement.
Villar was convicted in November of "contempt" and resisting arrest when he participated in an antigovernment demonstration in eastern Cuba. Supporters of the government of President Raul Castro dismissed the little-known Villar as a common criminal."
ALEXANDER LANGUAGE SCHOOLS
Wilman Villar, 31, died Thursday night in a hospital where authorities had transferred him after he fell ill, apparently from the effects of a seven-week hunger strike. His widow, Maritza Pelegrino Cabrales, told Human Rights Watch that prison guards had placed Villar naked in solitary confinement in a small, cold cell. Cuban rights activists said he succumbed to pneumonia.
"The responsibility for Wilman Villar Mendoza's death in custody lies squarely with the Cuban authorities, who summarily judged and jailed him for exercising his right to freedom of expression," Javier Zuniga, special advisor at Amnesty International, said in a statement.
Villar was convicted in November of "contempt" and resisting arrest when he participated in an antigovernment demonstration in eastern Cuba. Supporters of the government of President Raul Castro dismissed the little-known Villar as a common criminal."
No comments:
Post a Comment