The Cuban government is to begin moving political prisoners to jails in their home provinces and provide hospital treatment to the sickest among them, a dissident on a three-month protest hunger strike said on Saturday.
Guillermo Farinas said that Havana’s Auxiliary Bishop Juan de Dios Hernandez told him of the government’s decision during a visit to his bedside on Saturday.
The decision to transfer prisoners to local jails could be a concession to Farina’s demand that 26 sick political prisoners be released before ending his hunger strike, which is a source of deep embarrassment for Cuban President Raul Castro’s government.
Roman Catholic Church officials have been negotiating with the government on behalf of Farinas.
Farinas, 48, said Hernandez told him Cuban Cabinet Secretary Homero Acosta had called Cardinal Jaime Ortega to tell him of the government’s decision.
A church official who requested anonymity confirmed Farinas statement and said that the transfer involved 15 to 18 prisoners.
“When the number of [political prisoners] released reaches 10 and the Church tells me there is a timeline for others to be freed, I will end my strike,” Farinas said earlier.
It was unclear whether Havana’s move met Farina’s conditions for ending his protest.
An opposition journalist, Farinas began his 23rd hunger strike since 1995 — denying both food and water — the day after leading Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata died on Feb. 23 following an 85-day hunger strike.
He is currently in Santa Clara hospital in central Cuba, where he has been treated with an IV drip since March 11. By telephone, he earlier said that his health was declining and he was likely suffering from kidney stones and a cyst in the left kidney.
He also said that Church officials had agreed that “the government must take the first step, which must be the release of prisoners.”
In his first ever meeting with Cuba’s top two Church officials — Ortega and Episcopal Conference leader Archbishop Dionisio Garcia — Castro said that he was ready to consider resolving the thorny issue, Garcia said on Thursday after the meeting.
Dissident groups say there are more than 200 political prisoners in Cuban jails. Amnesty International considers 65 of them as prisoners of conscience.
Cuba denies it holds any political prisoners and calls dissidents “mercenaries” funded by the US and a conservative Cuban-US “mafia.”
The Catholic Church has pressed Castro’s regime on the issue of political prisoners, without resorting to confrontation.
It recently persuaded authorities to drop a ban on a group of wives and female relatives of jailed dissidents known as the Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White) holding a public march calling for their loved ones to be released.
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