By Dean Graber
Independent journalist Guillermo (Coco) Fariñas has refused food for nearly three months to protest treatment of political prisoners on the island. His story has been widely reported by English- and Spanish-language media. But on Saturday, he was the source of stories in foreign media that said the Havana regime had agreed to transfer ill prisoners to hospitals and to move prisoners being held far from their hometowns.
The changes were to begin Monday (May 24), and some jailed dissidents could eventually be freed, the Miami Herald’s Juan Tamayo reports, quoting a phone conversation Saturday with Fariñas from his hospital bed in Santa Clara, where he was receiving intravenous feeding after refusing food and water. Reuters also spoke with Fariñas, who said the news was delivered to him by the archbishop of Havana after talks between Catholic Church leaders and President Raul Castro.
Rumors have circulated in Havana about the recent conversations between the Catholic Church and the Castro regime, but independent journalists and bloggers were not invited to a press briefing called by the Church, Cuba's most famous blogger, Yoani Sánchez, reports on her blog.
In an interview with Radio Netherlands Worldwide, exiled Cuban author Carlos Alberto Montaner says Raul Castro wants to release the island’s approximately 200 political prisoners, and the relaxed detention rules would be a first step. “But President Castro can’t publicly announce his intention to release the detainees because their existence is not officially acknowledged by the regime in Havana,” Radio Netherlands says. “That’s why, believes Mr. Montaner, the president is making use of the Roman Catholic Church as a partner in discussions.”
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.
