Cuban blogger Claudia Cadelo, informs through Twitter that Guillermo Fariñas has been discharged from hospital, and is at home.

There were no details on his current condition, but we will update the post as soon we obtain further them.

UPDATE: Italian news agency ANSA informs in Spanish details his discharge from hospital. It states that Fariñas will have to use a wheelchair due to a neuropathy caused by his 135 day long hunger strike (his 23rd) and that he still suffers from a clot in one of his carotids that will take years to treat.

The opposition activist told the reporter that because of his motor limitations, he will continue his work as an independent journalist from his home.

We are happy to see Fariñas out of hospital, albeit not completely healthy. We will monitor his situation, and wish him a speedy recovery. And, we are most grateful to this great Cuban for his fearless fight, for risking his own life for the release of Cuban political prisoners.

Italian newspaper Il Giornale, informs [in Italian] that the popular radio show  Zapping [Mix It Up] conducted by veteran journalist Aldo Forbice for Radio RAI, has collected one hundred thousand signatures for their campaign Liberiamo i prigionieri politici a Cuba [Free the Cuban Political Prisoners].

Their campaign was announced 12 April 2010, and has just concluded. It coincided with ours and Guillermo Fariñas' 135-day long hunger strike. It has been recognized and "praised by Cuban opposition activists and leaders within and outside of Cuba like Carlos Carralero" and Andria Medina "of Unione per le libertà a Cuba [Union for the Freedom of Cuba], Armando Valladares, Vladimiro Roca", Laura Pollán, and others as a "contributing factor to the recently announced release of 52 political prisoners after the mediation of the Spanish government and the Catholic Church", according to the newspaper article.

Aside from radio, it was also widely y tirelessly promoted on blogs, and the social networks Facebook and Twitter.

The signatures will be delivered to the Cuban embassy in Rome, and sent to Jerzy Buzek, President of the European Parliament.

We extend our congratulations to the Liberiamo i prigionieri politici a Cuba Campaign, and our eternal gratitude for working so diligently for the freedom of all Cuban political prisoners.

Cuban political prisoner Efrén Fernández Fernández started a hunger strike late last week to protest his transfer from a medical facility back to prison, according to Oswaldo Payá, head of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL)[in Spanish].

Fernández, an MCL activist imprisoned since the "black spring" crackdown of 2003, had been receiving treatment for skin and intestinal problems no doubt brought on by and/or aggravated by his more than seven years in the Castro gulag. He is demanding that he be given the care he needs.

Fernández is serving a 12-year sentence, but the Catholic Church in Cuba has said he is one of 52 prisoners set to be released under a deal negotiated by the church, the Spanish government and the Castro dictatorship.

MADRID, Spain (AFP) — Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said on Thursday he would visit Cuba next week to speak about human rights and support mediation efforts launched by the Roman Catholic Church.

“I will be visiting Cuba Monday and Tuesday,” he told Cadena Ser radio, adding that the aim was to “pursue every effort at dialogue to improve the human rights situation and the process of reform” on the communist-ruled island.

Moratinos singled out the recent successes of the Church with regard to political prisoners, saying, “I am convinced there will be positive results with regard to human rights” in Cuba.

Last month Havana released an ailing political prisoner, Ariel Sigler, and transferred 12 other detainees to facilities in their home provinces following unprecedented dialogue between Cuban President Raul Castro and Roman Catholic Cardinal Jaime Ortega.

Shortly afterwards Vatican Foreign Minister Dominique Mamberti described evolving relations between Roman Catholic Church and Cuba as “very positive,” on a visit commemorating the 75th anniversary of ties.

Jailed dissident physician Darsi Ferrer was also released in June after serving 11 months of a 15-month jail sentence for illegally purchasing construction materials — charges his family said were trumped up.

Imprisoned several times for heading protest movements, Ferrer in April went on a three-week hunger strike to demand a fair trial and medical attention. His cause was taken up by several Western nations.

Moratinos said that another dissident, Guillermo Farinas, was in a serious condition after launching a hunger strike four months ago to secure the release of 26 sick detainees.

Farinas stopped taking food the day after leading dissident Orlando Zapata died on February 23 as the result of an 85-day hunger strike.

The Cuban Human Rights and National Reconciliation Commission (CCDHRN) — an outlawed but tolerated group — estimates there are some 200 political prisoners in the Caribbean nation of more than 11 million people.

Cuban authorities consider them a threat to national security, and claim the prisoners are “mercenaries” on Washington’s pay, out to smear the Cuban government.

During its just-ended tenure of the European Union’s rotating presidency, Spain urged that full relations with Cuba be restored, but it met with resistance from other countries in the 27-nation bloc.

EU foreign ministers decided to look at the question again in September.

The “common position” at present is to insist that Cuba make progress on human rights and democracy before ties are normalized, diplomats said.

Spain has argued that the EU position has yielded few results since it was adopted in 1996 and should be abandoned.

(Source Human Rights in Cuba.)

Cuban political prisoner Egberto Escobedo Morales told Cuban Democratic Directorate [in Spanish] today that he has ended a hunger strike he started April 16 because of poor health. But he is continuing his protest in the form of a fast during which he will only ingest liquid nutrients.

Escobedo, whose weight is down to 110 pounds, said he is suffering from colon and lung problems. He is currently being held in the same prison hospital where fellow political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo died Feb. 23 — four months ago today — after an 86-day hunger strike.

Escobedo, who has been imprisoned since 1995, reiterated three demands of his protest:

• The release of all political prisoners.
• Negotiations between the government and opposition on a democratic transition.
• The allowing of visits to Cuban prisons by international human rights groups.

Escobedo also said he is opposed to the lifting of American sanctions on the Castro regime.

The following op-ed appeared yesterday 16 June 2010 on the Argentinian newspaper La Nación.  This is our translation:

Despite the hypocritical condescension of some, the truth is that the communist regime in Cuba is totalitarian, and has generated a social environment in which there is no respect whatsoever for human rights nor individual and political freedoms. The people of Cuba seem also condemned to live in misery, and in all sorts of privations.

Once in a while, a harsh reminder reveals to us the immense cruelty of the regime that has kept Cubans hostage, and transformed the island in a vast prison from which they can get out only if the government allows them; where, furthermore, one cannot think different without committing the crime of having an opinion, punished with prison in Cuban jails, possibly the most inhumane in the world.

This is the shocking message of the recent release of Ariel Sigler, one of the gravely ill Cuban political prisoners. He [is now a] paraplegic due to a neurological disease, wheel chair ridden, with serious problems with his stomach, esophagus and throat, and less than sixty percent of [how much he] weight[ed] when he was arrested.

The health of Ariel Sigler, or more accurately what is left of Ariel Sigler, seems [totally] destroyed. [At] Barely 47 years of age, the president of Movimiento Independiente Opción Alternativa [Alternative Option Independent Movement] looks like a decaying old man. This is how he returned to his family’s house after seven years of imprisonment for thinking differently [from the regime]. He was condemned to twenty years. Despite all that, when he arrived, he promised to continue fighting for freedom. His health may be defeated, but not his courage.

The inhumane treatment he received is in plain sight for all to see, even those who refuse to see. It is possible that the efforts of valiant Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega, who personally knows what imprisonment is, would have contributed to his [almost too late] release. Perhaps, it is possible that the transfer of other political prisoners with precarious health closer to their relatives will materialize soon.

Sigler, let us remember, belonged to the Group of 75, those imprisoned during Cuba’s Black Spring of 2003. He was kept in several prisons in [the Cuban provinces of] Ciego de Ávila, Villa Clara y Cienfuegos, all far from his place of residence in [the province of] Matanzas. This shows the cruelty of the regime with the dissidents.

In another corner of the island, in this case in a hospital 400 km from La Habana, another inmate, Guillermo Fariñas*, has been on hunger strike for four months. As it happened with courageous dissident Orlando Zapata, Fariñas may die as a result of his voluntary fast. The horror of what happens in Cuba is shocking, and because of that it cannot and should not be silenced.

At least five Cuban political prisoners are refusing food in a spontaneous trend triggered by the February death of a dissident.

BY FRANCES ROBLES
frobles@MiamiHerald.com

Egberto Angel Escobedo completed his 17th year in a Cuban prison last Friday, and his 56th day of a hunger strike.

He's at a penitentiary called ``Red Ceramic'' [Cerámica Roja, a former ceramics factory] in Camagüey, where the military keeps him in isolation to prevent other inmates from spreading word of his failing health.

Escobedo is one of at least five cases of political prisoners -- down from seven -- who are refusing food, in what experts say is an extraordinary surge of inmates at different Cuban lockups fighting over different causes. Protesting everything from medical care to prison uniforms, they are using an age-old technique that over the years has met with mixed results.

``I don't recall at least in the last decade seeing so many people in jail on a hunger strike,'' said former political prisoner Ricardo Bofill, who served two stints totaling 15 years. ``There is a political context that contributes to all this. They perceive that this is the moment to pressure the government, that there is momentum.''

Some protesters, like prisoner Diosdado González, quickly have their demands met. His wife's sympathy hunger strike lasted just a day. A dozen other prisoners over the decades, such as Orlando Zapata Tamayo four months ago, died.

Experts say the current strikes, likely fueled by Zapata's death, were uncoordinated, spontaneous and far from unprecedented.

From the fight for independence against the Spanish to the battle against the dictators who came before the Castros, Cuban activists have refused food in a quest to have a spotlight shone on their causes.

In the late 1960s, entire prisons would go on collective hunger strikes to protest conditions. Before 1959, intense media coverage turned hunger strikers into overnight national cause célèbres, said former prisoner José Albertini, who wrote the 2007 Spanish-language book, Cuba and Castroism: Hunger Strikes in Political Prisons.

Albertini's great-grandmother died in the late 1800s while imprisoned for struggling for Cuba's independence. She refused to eat or to feed two of her children, and all three died.

``The hunger striker is political and largely does this for press attention to their cause,'' Albertini said. ``In the 1960s and '70s, they did it out of dignity, because they knew nobody would listen.''

And while journalists are shut out of Cuba's prisons, the proliferation of cellphones and the Internet have helped spread information about hunger strikes that in the past the Cuban government could have kept secret.

``The international community around the world should be up to date on the political prisoners and Cuban citizens who oppose'' the Castro regime, Escobedo said in a message distributed by the Democratic Directorate human rights organization. ``I will continue carrying out Orlando Zapata Tamayo's call to resistance, which cannot be extinguished.''

Only after his death after more than 80 days on hunger strike, did Orlando Zapata Tamayo become a widely known name. His blood is on the hands of the Castro dictatorship, but maybe his life would have been spared if more of the world had aware of his struggle, and acted on his behalf, before he succumbed Feb. 23 to his protest and the malignant neglect of his captors.

Let us make sure that Zapata's fellow prisoner Egberto Escobedo Morales gets the attention he needs and deserves as he carries out his own hunger strike -- now more than 50 days long -- demanding that the dictatorship respect his human rights and that of all Cubans.

According to Radio Marti, Escobedo is currently in very poor health in the infirmary at the Cerámica Roja prison in Camagüey. The vitamins and other nutrients he is receiving via IV are not making a difference, and fellow political prisoner Jorge Alberto Liriano Linares said Escobedo is at risk of dying if he is not transferred to a hospital.

Despite his poor condition, former political prisoner Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez" told Radio Marti that Escobedo is maintaining his position against the dictatorship. He is refusing to wear the uniform of a common prisoner and to participate in any of the prison's efforts to "re-educate" him.

After more than 50 days on hunger strike, Escobedo still is not one of Cuba's better-known prisoners. He already had been jail for some eight years at the time of the "black spring" crackdown of 2003; he is not part of the "Group of 75."

That is why it is vital that word of his protest be proclaimed over and over again, so that Escobedo -- and his captors -- know that he is not forgotten. In doing so, we hopefully can save his life.

Spanish newspaper El País details Coco's current condition as described to them by Licet Zamora and Clara Pérez, spokesperson and wife of the opposition activist respectively.

Although conscious, Fariñas is suffering from an acute bacterial infection that is causing extremely high fevers (104º F or 40º C). He's also suffering from generalized malaise, weakness and can barely speak. Doctors at the Intensive Care Unit where he has been for more than three months now, were forced to retrieve the catheter they were using to administer fluids and some nutrients into his body.

Both Zamora and Pérez, stated that Fariñas is steadfast on his resolution to maintain the hunger strike. Zamora also added that when asked about the recent transfer of six prisoners to penal facilities in their provinces of residence, Fariñas stated that "it was a step forward, but not what he demands" and that "if the government wants to save Fariñas's life, it has to grant parole to at least 10 or 12 political prisoners who are sick. "

Cuban political prisoner Ariel Sigler Amaya has been left an invalid by his more than seven years in the Castro gulag. He is paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair.

They have broken his body, but try as they might, Sigler's captors have not quashed his spirit, they have not stamped out his will to fight the injustice and cruelty the Castro dictatorship's very existence represents.

Sigler's health condition is precarious, but his brother tells Radio Martí this week that Sigler is laying on the line what little of his health is left to protest the regime's lies.

Juan Francisco Sigler Amaya said his brother has decided to refuse any medical care, included needed medications, until he is transferred to a Havana hospital closer to his family, as the government had earlier promised. And if there is no response to his demand, Ariel is prepared to begin a hunger strike.

Cuban independent journalist Guillermo Fariñas clarified that he will continue his already three month long hunger strike if the government of Raul Castro does not free “all” the political prisoners because his protest “is not just to achieve transfers” of prisoners to other penitentiaries [closer to their homes] but to “achieve the liberation of all of them.”

Representatives of the Catholic Church informed Fariñas last week that the Cuban government had agreed to transfer some of the political prisoners to jails closer to their homes, and to send some of those sick to hospitals, without it meaning a definitive release.

“If the government says that they will not release the 26 [sick prisoners] then I will continue [the hunger strike] because I didn’t [start]this protest for transfers but to demand the liberation of the political prisoners who are sick”, the 48 year old dissident told Europapress.

Source [in Spanish]: Europapress