Leading Cuban political prisoner Orlando Zapata died in hospital on Tuesday, 85 days into a hunger strike, medical officials said, as “indignant” dissidents blamed the government for his death.
A spokesman for Havana’s Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital, where the 42-year-old political prisoner was transferred late on Monday from a smaller clinic near his prison in the eastern province of Camaguey, said Zapata died at 1pm.
Jailed since 2003 and deemed a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, Zapata had been on a hunger strike to protest prison conditions that he blamed for his deteriorating health.
PHOTO: AFP
The movement “is not seeking martyrs,” said Oswaldo Paya, leader of the Christian Liberation Movement dissident group. Zapata died “defending the freedom, rights and dignity of all Cubans,” he said.
In Camaguey, authorities had placed the dissident in a provincial hospital before he was transferred by ambulance to Hermanos Ameijeiras, one of the biggest in the capital and outfitted with more care and surgical options.
Hours before Zapata’s death, the banned Cuban Committee for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) had said his condition was “very serious.”
Early this month, Cuban police harassed, beat and briefly jailed some 35 dissidents marching in Camaguey protesting the “cruel and inhuman treatment” of Zapata, CCDHRN said.
The group’s director, Elizardo Sanchez, said it was the first time in nearly 40 years that a Cuban opposition figure has died while on a hunger strike.
Zapata’s demise is “bad news for the human rights movement and for the government as well,” Sanchez said.
In Miami, a Cuban exile group quoted his mother as saying authorities essentially killed her son in Havana.
“They have done him in. My son’s death was a premeditated murder,” Reina Tamayo said in a statement released by the Cuban Democratic Directorate.
Hector Palacios, one of 75 political prisoners convicted in 2003 and who met Zapata in prison, said that “people are indignant” and that a national mourning and fasting period was being considered.
“I’m crushed,” said Palacios, who has been released for health reasons. Zapata “had no alternative but to decide on the hunger strike. The authorities took no pity on him, they just let him die,” he said.
Zapata was convicted in 2003 for political activities anathema to the only one-party communist regime in the Americas. He received a similar sentence to the other 75 dissidents, but while jailed his sentence was boosted to 25 years in subsequent trials.
The Cuban government denies holding any political prisoners, instead calling those imprisoned “mercenaries” in the pay of US opponents of the regime. Dissident sources however put the number of political prisoners at 200 in a country of more than 11 million.
Palacios said the timing was terrible for Havana. Just as Latin American leaders wrapped up a Rio Group regional summit in Mexico, “the world learns that in Cuba at this moment a man has just died from lack of attention,” he said. “It’s a political crime.”
Zapata’s death could also cast a shadow over a visit to the island by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio da Silva, who arrived late on Tuesday.
Cuban dissidents had written a letter to da Silva urging him to intercede to try to help Zapata or secure his release.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS