Cuban refugee in Spain gives up hunger strike
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
A Cuban refugee in Spain has ended a hunger strike after getting a new
Spanish government promise that he will get residency and a work permit
-- 15 months after he was first promised them.
Jorge Alberto Pérez Fernández said a senior Interior Ministry official
told him the government had agreed to grant him legal status, though the
documents will be issued next month because the government comes to a
virtual halt during the August vacation period.
``I told him that words can be carried away by the wind, and he sent a
written note'' containing the promise of permanent residency, a work
permit and access to Spain's social security system, Pérez told El Nuevo
Herald by phone.
The 42-year-old architect from the eastern town of Banes went on a
hunger strike July 19 to protest the Spanish government's failure to
meet its promise to grant him residency and a work permit within six
months after his arrival in June 2009.
Pérez fled Cuba on a small boat but was picked up by the U.S. Coast
Guard on April 16, 2008, and taken to the Navy base in Guantánamo
because his dissident activities supported his fear of persecution if he
was returned to Cuba.
He and seven other Cubans who had arrived in Guantánamo under similar
circumstances were flown to Spain on June 8, 2009. They carried letters
from the U.S. State Department saying the Spanish government had
promised to grant them political asylum or residency in a maximum of six
months.
The seven others received immigration documents, but Pérez, who settled
in Spain's Canary Islands, was denied political asylum. His later
request for temporary residency was also denied, as was his appeal.
He was an undocumented migrant who could not legally work, and the
initial financial aid arranged by the U.S. State Department through a
Washington-based nonprofit, about $700 a month, ran out after six months.
Spanish officials never explained the reasons behind the denials, said
his Cuban-born lawyer in Madrid, Gustavo Fuentes.
Pérez's case cast a shadow over the Spanish government's promises to
grant the best immigration status possible to the 20 recently released
Cuban political prisoners who have arrived in Madrid with more than 100
relatives.
Pérez said he quickly cautioned some of the new arrivals to carefully
consider what kind of status they wanted -- and then fight to make sure
the Spanish government met its promises.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/02/1757596/cuban-refugee-in-spain-gives-up.html
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