Cuban Dissidents Have Demands Met, End Hunger Strike

Cuban Dissidents Have Demands Met, End Hunger Strike

Published September 19, 2012

Fox News Latino

A longtime Cuban dissident and her followers have abandoned a hunger

strike on its eighth day after receiving word the government will meet

their main demand.

Martha Beatriz Roque called off the strike when told the government

would free little known dissident Jorge Vasquez, who she claims is

serving a jail term for a minor, non-political crime.

In a statement released to The Associated Press, Roque supporter Rosa

Maria Naranjo said the protest had not been in vain.

The 67-year-old Roque is one of the best known figures in Cuba's small

dissident community. Opposition members say more than two dozen others

participated in the hunger strike.

Cuba's government considers all opposition members to be common

criminals and stooges in the pay of Washington. It has had no public

comment throughout the protest.

Cuba's small opposition community has already lost two of its leaders in

less than a year.

Veteran dissident Oswaldo Paya was killed in a car accident in July, and

Ladies in White founder Laura Pollan died of heart failure in October 2011.

Two other Cuban opposition figures have died in hunger strikes in recent

years. Wilman Villar died in January following a 50-day hunger strike he

called to protest his four-year sentence for assault, resisting arrest

and disrespecting authority.

In February 2010, Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after refusing food for

months. He was considered a prisoner of conscience by U.K.-based human

rights group Amnesty International.

Based on reporting by the Associated Press.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/09/19/cuban-dissidents-meet-their-demand-end-hunger-strike/