Four Cuban inmates considered political prisoners and an opposition activist who is not behind bars vowed Friday to stop eating in protest after another jailed dissident died this week following his own lengthy hunger strike.
The death Tuesday of an imprisoned construction worker and government critic named Orlando Zapata Tamayo after he refused solid food for weeks has energized the opposition community, however, and many of its members claim hunger strikes are one of the few ways they can get noticed.
To honor Zapata Tamayo, prisoners Diosdado Gonzalez Marrero, Eduardo Diaz Freitas, Fidel Suarez Cruz and Nelson Molinet, held in high-security Kilo Cinco y Medio prison in the western province of Pinar del Rio, are refusing solid food, according the independent Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation.
Prison authorities, and the government, had no comment.
