Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba Visits the Hunger Strikers

Monsignor Dionisio García Ibáñez, Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba. (Archbishopric)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 8 April 2021 — The Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, Dionisio García, visited the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu) on Thursday to inquire about activists on hunger strike for 20 days, as confirmed by opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer through Twitter.

“We are grateful for the visit that Archbishop Dionisio García has just made to us, taking an interest in the health of the strikers that we encounter at the national headquarters of Unpacu,” the former political prisoner said on the social network.

Ferrer reflected on a decrease in the police operation around his home that seems to have been motivated by the arrival of the religious figure: “But it turns out that they had hidden because Archbishop Dionisio García came to inquire about our health.”

Ferrer reflected on a decrease in the police operation around his home that seems to have been motivated by the arrival of the religious figure: “But it turns out that they had hidden because Archbishop Dionisio García came to inquire about our health.”

On April 1, Berta Soler, leader of the Ladies in White, sent a message to Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García warning him that in the middle of Holy Week dozens of Cubans were on hunger strike to “demand that the Cuban regime withdraw the police siege around the national headquarters of Unpacu in Santiago de Cuba, stop repressing them and allow them to feed the homeless.”

Ferrer, along with 24 other activists, is currently on the twentieth day of a hunger strike in protest of the repression and constant harassment by State Security towards the headquarters of the Unpacu, in the Altamira district of Santiago de Cuba, which is also his family home.

In its protest, Unpacu also has the support of civil and political organizations inside and outside the island, such as Cuba Decides, the Republican Party of Cuba, the United Antitotalitarian Front, the Pedro Luis Boitel Democracy Party and the Foundation for the Pan-American Democracy. In addition, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, expressed his solidarity with the strikers.

At the beginning of this month, five European deputies sent a letter to the island’s authorities asking for details about the strikers’ health. Dita Charanzová, vice president of the European Parliament, and four other members of the chamber, urged the Cuban government to end the police siege.

Charanzová has stressed on several occasions that the lives of the strikers are in the hands of the Cuban Government, in addition to sending her support to Ferrer and other Unpacu activists, and to all the victims of the repression on the island: “Europe is with you,” she said.

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