Activists on hunger strike protest treatment of Cuban detainees in Bahamas

Posted on Thursday, 08.01.13

Activists on hunger strike protest treatment of Cuban detainees in Bahamas
BY DAVID NORIEGA
DNORIEGA@MIAMIHERALD.COM

Lying on a stretcher in the heart of Little Havana, Ramón Saúl Sánchez,
president of the Cuban exile group Democracy Movement, continued the
seventh day of a hunger strike in protest of the alleged abuse of
undocumented Cuban detainees in the Bahamas.

At his side: fellow activist Jesús Aléxis Gómez, who has been on a
hunger strike for 14 days.

The exile group started protests in June in response to a cellphone
video that purports to show Bahamian prison guards kicking detainees on
the ground.

The protests have continued even though the Bahamian government, in a
letter to U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia, D-Miami, agreed Friday to look into the
detainees' conditions.

Sánchez, 58, said the letter was insufficient, mainly because the
Bahamian government continues to call the video a forgery.

"If you don't recognize the problem, how will you find a solution?" said
Sánchez.

Garcia said in a statement that "we continue to make daily inquires to
the Bahamian government and will continue to do so until there is a
satisfactory resolution to these issues."

The two activists lay under a tent in the Cuban Memorial Plaza in Little
Havana on Thursday, surrounded by signs, jugs of water and groups of
friends and supporters.

Among those who visited the pair on Thursday was Miami Mayor Tomás
Regalado, who said he intended to use his personal money to help
Democracy Movement with the $15 it must pay the city daily for a permit
to continue using the plaza.

Regalado said he has known Sánchez as a friend for 25 years.

"I think what they're doing is a heroic act, and the Bahamas should heed
their call," Regalado said. "But I'm worried about their health."

Sánchez has staged five hunger strikes in the past, one of which lasted
25 days and ended with him in a coma. He has since developed diabetes
and, over the course of this strike, has lost 13 pounds.

Gómez, who takes credit for providing the detainees with the cellphones
they used to record the controversial video, said he is willing to die
if it will resolve the issue.

"My main objective is for the detainees to obtain their freedom," he
said. "That's when my hunger strike will end. Otherwise I will die here."

Source: "Activists on hunger strike protest treatment of Cuban detainees
in Bahamas - Cuba - MiamiHerald.com" -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/01/3537648/activists-on-hunger-strike-protest.html