By Maira Magro
Dissident Cuban journalist Guillermo Fariñas, on a hunger strike for more than four months to demand the release of political prisoners on the island, said he is aware his death is approaching and that brothers Fidel y Raúl Castro are responsible for his future death, reported the news agencies EFE and AFP.
In a statement read on Radio Martí, the journalist responded to an article in the state-owned newspaper Granma about the serious state of his health. That article never mentioned that Fariñas is a dissident, nor did it explain the motive for his hunger strike. Fariñas said he will not leave his country to receive medical treatment, and that he considered it an "honor" to die trying to "save" political prisoners in Cuba.
“I want to die in my country under the noses of the dictators who have the pistols, rifles, cannons and bombs," the journalist said in the statement, published on the blog "Huelga de Hambre Cuba" (Cuba Hunger Strike). Fariñas remains in intensive care in a hospital in Santa Clara, about 160 miles from Havana.
The article in Granma — the official voice of Cuba's Communist party — interviewed the doctor who is treating the journalist. It was the first story in the official press to recognize the seriousness of his condition.
Read more Knight Center stories about Fariñas here.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
