Cuba authorities urged to stop harassing dead activist’s family
22 February 2011

Amnesty International has urged Cuban authorities to end the harassment of relatives of a human rights activist who died during a hunger strike last year.

Reina Luisa Tamayo, whose son Orlando Zapata Tamayo died at a Havana prison in February 2010, told Amnesty International she was arrested by state security agents who threatened to stop her and other mourners from commemorating the anniversary of Orlando’s death in church, on 23 February.

“The fact that the Cuban authorities have so far failed to initiate an investigation into Orlando’s death is outrageous and preventing his family from properly celebrating his life is a scandal,” said Javier Zuñiga, Special Advisor at Amnesty International.

Tamayo, 72, her husband and another activist, Daniel Mesa, were forcefully detained on Friday 18 February by more than a dozen local security agents as they were walking around their village in Banes, north-west Cuba. Tamayo and her husband were released 12 hours later and Mesa, two days later.

Tamayo said the agents had threatened to prevent her leaving her home and go to the cemetery where her son is buried, in breach of her human rights.

“The recent releases of activists in Cuba, who shouldn’t have been put in prison in the first place, will only be meaningful if, once all activists are released, they are able to carry out their legitimate work defending human rights without fear of reprisals,” said Javier Zuñiga.

“The harassment suffered by people like Orlando Tamayo’s relatives clearly goes to show that things still have not changed in Cuba and the authorities need to do much more to ensure human rights are a reality for all.”

Orlando Zapata Tamayo was arrested in March 2003 and sentenced to three years in prison in May 2004 for “disrespect”, “public disorder” and “resistance”.

He was subsequently tried several times on further charges of “disobedience” and “disorder in a penal establishment” - the last time in May 2009 - and was serving a 36 year-sentence at the time of his death in prison.

Reina Tamayo said she intends to live in exile in the USA along with a number of her relatives and has been granted all relevant documents by the US authorities.

The Cuban government has yet to issue the necessary permits.

Mother of dead Cuban prisoner of conscience prevented from attending church
17/08/2010


Christian Solidarity Worldwide is calling on the Cuban government to allow Reina Luis Tamayo Danger, the mother of Orlando Zapata Tamayo who died in Cuban prison earlier this year, to attend religious services and to cease their harassment of Tamayo Danger and her family.

Since the beginning of August, on consecutive Sundays, State Security agents and other pro-government members of the community in the town of Banes have physically blocked the road taken by Tamayo Danger on her way to church, preventing her from attending Sunday Mass and visiting the cemetery where her son is buried.

Video footage sent out of Cuba shows a line of men in uniform interlocking arms across a dirt road, standing face to face with a small group of women accompanying Tamayo Danger. The women are part of a larger movement across the island known as the Ladies in White, made up of wives and mothers of prisoners of conscience. A crowd of people chants pro-government slogans and shouts obscenities at the women who stand in front of them, unable to pass.

According to Tamayo Danger, for over five months she and her family have been subjected to acts of intimidation from government officials, including verbal abuse and threats of violence. Her weekly attendance at Mass at the La Caridad Catholic Church has been particularly targeted. She says, however, that the violence and intimidation is no longer confined to Sundays.

Tamayo Danger requested that the international media to come to Banes to cover the situation. CSW is calling on representatives of European embassies in Cuba to go to Banes to investigate these threats and show solidarity with her.

CSW’s National Director Stuart Windsor says, “No one should be subjected to these tactics of intimidation simply because they are attempting to attend a weekly religious service, a right enjoyed by religious believers across Cuba. We are calling on the Cuban government to cease its harassment of Mrs Tamayo Danger immediately and to allow her to attend Mass and visit her son’s grave without hindrance.”

For further information or to arrange interviews please contact Kiri Kankhwende, Press Officer at Christian Solidarity Worldwide on +44 (0)20 8329 0045 / +44 (0) 78 2332 9663 or email kiri@csw.org.uk.
CSW is a human rights organisation which specialises in religious freedom, works on behalf of those persecuted for their Christian beliefs and promotes religious liberty for all.

Notes to Editors:
1. Orlando Zapata Tamayo was one of 75 prisoners of conscience arrested and imprisoned in March 2003 in a wave of political repression now known as the Black Spring. He went on hunger strike in at the end of 2009 to protest prison conditions. He died in February 2010 after prison officials denied him water for eighteen days, leading to kidney failure, and withheld medical treatment until it was too late. There was an international outcry following his death and he has since become a symbol for dissident groups across the island.


2. Video footage of the events in Banes can be found on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5Qz-OB9K94&feature=player_embedded
The footage in this link is freely available to the public. CSW does not take responsibility for the content provided therein. Any views expressed on the website do not reflect those of CSW of its staff.

Alberto de la Cruz at Babalublog reports on his phone conversation with Reina Luisa Tamayo. She sent a message to the world:

For the past two Sundays the Cuban government has not allowed me or my family and supporters to attend church or to visit the cemetery where my son, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, is buried. The government has sent people to carry out acts of repudiation. They have pushed and shoved us, beaten us. Both my legs have been injured by the physical attacks I have endured. We only want to be able to go to church and to pay our respects at the grave of my son, Orlando Zapata Tamayo. They, however, will not let us.

For five months my house has been surrounded by state security. The government has ordered people to harass and repress us. They have brought weapons with them -- clubs and knives. These people wait until uniformed security agents are watching to push and beat us with the hopes that it will curry favor for them from the government. They hope by doing the bidding of the Castro brothers, the government will overlook how they steal from their workplaces and trade on the black market. The government will not overlook their actions because it a government of assassins!

We have been beaten along with fellow members of the opposition that have stood next to me. My son has been beaten over the head and his back. But we will not give up, we will not kneel to the Castro brothers.

The news media has done nothing to help us. The Catholic Church has done nothing to help us. Cardinal Jaime Ortega has never tried to contact me and has done nothing to stop the beatings we are receiving for only wanting to to go church and visit the grave of my son.

This Sunday, at 8:30 am, I, along with my family and supporters, will once again leave the house and attempt to go to church and visit my son's grave. Whatever happens to any us, I hold the Cuban government responsible!

Dear Sir or Madam:

By María Elena Salinas

For those of us who live in a free society, it’s difficult to imagine what it’s like to survive in a place where expressing your views and asking that your rights as a human being be respected could land you in jail. But that’s what life is like in Cuba. Throughout the years, the communist regime of the Castro brothers has put hundreds of dissidents behind bars.

In a twist of fate, or political maneuvering, 52 prisoners of conscience are being set free, allowed to leave the country with their family members if they so choose. Many of them accepted the offer to begin their exile in Spain.

Among the first nine to arrive in Madrid was Normando Hernandez. He traveled there with his wife and young daughter and was greeted by his mother, Blanca Gonzalez, who traveled to Spain from her own exile in Miami to greet him. I spoke to Normando by phone shortly after. “I feel a lot of sadness and nostalgia,” he told me. “It broke my heart to see my mother crying when she saw the frail condition I am in.”

It was for him a bittersweet moment. Although happy to be a free man and once again reunited with his mother after eight years, it pains him to think of what he left behind. “I left not only family members behind, but also my people, my brothers in the cause who are living their life in slow motion in Cuban jails in deplorable conditions and with the uncertainty of what will become of them.”

When they arrived in Spain, the freed prisoners were taken to a modest hotel in an industrial area in the outskirts of Madrid, where conditions were not quite what one might expect to find in a First World country. No TV sets, the rooms have metal lockers to store clothes, and guests have to share a bathroom. Yet, they could not complain. This was heaven compared with the conditions in a Cuban jail.

Hernandez worked as a writer and independent journalist in Cuba. He was sentenced to 25 years behind bars for reporting on the conditions of state-run services and criticizing the government. According to PEN American Center, a literary and human-rights organization, during his time behind bars he was transferred several times from one prison to another, held in solitary confinement with only four hours of sunlight a week. He was forced to share a tiny cell with insects, rodents and mentally unstable prisoners. He was given polluted water and inadequate food, and was offered only basic medical services. While in captivity, he contracted several illnesses.

The release of the 52 prisoners from Cuban jails is officially the result of the Catholic Church on the island and the government of Spain negotiating with Cuban authorities, but almost certainly was influenced by the bravery of ordinary Cubans who decided to go from oppressed observers to silent protesters, a silence so strong it reverberated in the highest levels of the Cuban hierarchy.

The pressure was on when international public opinion began to shift against the Castro regime as images of the “Ladies in White,” mothers and wives of political prisoners, being harassed by pro-government mobs during their Sunday vigils were broadcast around the world. The death of Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata in February, following an 85-day hunger strike, motivated independent journalist Guillermo Farinas to start his own hunger strike until prisoners who were gravely ill were allowed back home with their families and given proper medical attention. Shortly after the announcement of the release of the political prisoners in Cuba, Farinas, virtually on his deathbed, ended his 130-day hunger strike.

The release of these men is one of the most significant signs coming from the communist island of what could be the appearance of loosening up its tight reign. Critics of the Cuban regime think it’s just a public-relations stunt. The Cuban government has never admitted that there are political prisoners in Cuba, but according to human-rights groups, there are still dozens of prisoners of conscience behind bars.

For his part, Normando Hernandez will begin a new life in Spain, hoping eventually to live his exile in Miami. But his struggle to free Cuba will remain the same: “Whatever it takes to free my people, I will do, as a journalist, as a defender of human rights, in any capacity, but I will do it in a peaceful way.”

Cuba has pledged to let 52 of its prisoners of conscience go. We hope their release happens, and soon. But there should be no illusions that this gesture augurs fundamental political change on the island that the Castro brothers, Fidel and Raúl, have ruled with an iron fist since 1959. The Castro regime has a long history of tactical human rights concessions -- with the goal of buying time for the regime rather than reforming it. This release would appear to fit the pattern.

Always impoverished and unfree, revolutionary Cuba is in extra-bad shape now. Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the usually discreet archbishop of Havana, recently warned of "a difficult situation" that calls for "quick" changes by the government lest "impatience and ill will" spread. The state-run economy is reeling: Tourism and mineral exports are down, foreign debt is up, and Venezuela is decreasingly able to help because of its own colossal mismanagement. Meanwhile, Cuba's dissidents are gaining in daring and prestige -domestically and internationally. The death of prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo after a 75-day hunger strike, as well as the attacks of government-backed mobs on peaceful demonstrations by wives and mothers of political prisoners, earned global condemnation and set back Spain's efforts to relax the European Union's policy linking economic aid with human rights progress. Dissident Guillermo Farinas is near death on a hunger strike of his own, demanding freedom for 25 political prisoners who are sick.

The regime could ill afford that embarrassment. So the promised release is a victory for Mr. Farinas. And it's no accident that it was coordinated with the Spanish government -or that it came a week after the House Agriculture Committee had approved lifting the ban on U.S. tourism to the island and easing U.S. food sales. Raúl Castro, who took over day-to-day control from his ailing brother four years ago, undoubtedly hopes to encourage these developments, which promise to relieve his cash crunch.

How should the United States respond? As suggested by the fact that cash-only food exports from the United States make this country Cuba's fifth-largest trading partner, "embargo" is already a misnomer to describe the main U.S. policy approach. In fact, along with Venezuelan petroleum and tourism, cash remittances from Cuban Americans, which President Obama already has eased, constitute one of Cuba's economic pillars. We don't generally approve of restrictions on where Americans may travel. But the Cuba "ban" already includes large exceptions for Cuban Americans, trade delegations and educational missions. Neither those visits nor the influx of Canadians and Europeans have had the effect of liberalizing the regime -though they have brought in hard currency.

The 52 inmates represent fewer than one-third of Cuba's 167 political prisoners, according to democracy advocate Freedom House. Among prisoners notably not mentioned for release on Wednesday was Alan Gross of Potomac, an Agency for International Development contractor imprisoned in Cuba since December for the crime of distributing cellphones and laptops in Cuba's tiny Jewish community. And the first five prisoners to be freed reportedly are going to be forced into exile as a condition of their release. Mr. Obama has wisely linked major changes in U.S. sanctions to significant movement toward democracy and freedom by Havana. That condition is still far from met.

Reina Luisa Tamayo at the Huffington Post:

Much has been said in the Cuban regime's official media about my son Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a young black man. Many lies have been told, and it has been said that my son was a criminal, and that he was not simply allowed to die. The truth is that my son was murdered. The truth is that my son was allowed to die on a hunger strike he held to demand respect for his rights, and to demand freedom for his people. Today, I would like to tell you just who Orlando Zapata Tamayo was: a defender of human rights, and my beloved son.

Orlando Zapata Tamayo was born on May 15, 1967, a native of Santiago de Cuba. He spent his childhood in Santiago and Antilla in Holguin province, where he went to school through the ninth grade. He never spoke much, but he had a big heart for his family and all those who knew him, always giving the best of himself to his fellow man.

He competed in boxing at the provincial level in the 14-16 year olds division, winning first place and prizes for best match. Later, he began his working life. He earned a degree as a bricklayer with an elementary understanding of carpentry and plumbing, which allowed him to work in those areas. On several occasions working with crews in Havana, he earned the distinction of being named best worker.

Even though he would be offered a certain sum for his work before he started, when he finished the job he would be paid a lesser amount of money. Due to this kind of deceit, he dissociated himself from the only official employer, the government, and started working on his own account in order to survive. He was fined on repeated occasions for registering home addresses other than where he lived. It was through his work that he managed to he came into contact with the opposition. He founded a dissident discussion group in Havana's Central Park with activist Henry Saumell and others. He also worked on the Varela Project, which collected more than 10,000 signatures, as required by the Cuban constitution, on a citizen's initiative calling for democratic reform in Cuba. He was a member of the Republican Alternative Movement [Movimiento Alternativa Republicana] and the 30th of November Party [Partido 30 de Noviembre] which were actively engaged in a peaceful struggle against the Castro brothers' regime. As a result of this work, he was detained on several occasions.

Zapata was arrested on December 6, 2002 in Havana's Lawton neighborhood while on his way to attend a meeting with Dr. Oscar Elias Bicet at the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights, and he was then imprisoned. He was released three months later, without ever being tried. When he launched a protest fast with Marta Beatriz Roque and other activists against the continued jailing of activists, among them Dr. Biscet, he was arrested in the crackdown known as the Black Spring of 2003. Regime officials tried him based on his first arrest and sentenced him to three years imprisonment for resistance, disobedience and disorderly conduct for his position of opposition to the regime.

While in prison, his resistance led to additional charges with each one adding years to his sentence. Ultimately, the three year sentence was extended to 57 years and six months in prison. He remained a resistor, eating only what his family brought him. He only accepted water in prison, sleeping on the floor with bedding from home. His path through various prisons was one of physical and emotional abuse, which left their marks on his body. He underwent surgery for an intracrinal hematoma produced by a blow delivered by convicted criminals thrown into his sealed, maximum security solitary confinement cell. The prisons he went through were: Cien y Aldaboz, Villa Marista, Quivicán, Guanajay, Taco Taco, Holguín Provincial Prison, Cuba Sí, Kilo 8, and Combinado del Este in Holguin.

In Holguin, he suffered his last beatings, which were intended to end his life, on August 29, September 24, and October 26, of 2009. To demand respect for his rights, he carried out a water-only protest fast in intervals for 18 months. He would be shaved and have his hair cut only by force. He never wore a common prisoner's uniform, the uniform of a convicted criminal. While he was in Holguin Provincial Prison, State Security video taped him often.

He was sent to Kilo 8, the maximum security prison in Camagüey, where they stole his food upon arrival in order to force him to eat the prison food. They also forced him to dress as a common prisoner, while he had previously worn white at every prison he had gone through.

Zapata began his final hunger strike in order to demand respect for his rights as a political prisoner. He spent one month and three days on the floor. He was denied water for 18 days in an attempt to break his defiance, which provoked two heart attacks while still being held at Kilo 8. Afterwards he was transferred to the Prisoners Ward at Amalia Simoni Hospital. This is when his family was able to see him briefly. They only allowed him one bottle of water, but not the one from which he wanted to drink.

He was transferred to a so-called "Intensive Care Unit" that was cobbled together on the spot exclusively for him, and where he was kept under guard by armed soldiers. This all created a delay that caused his health to worsen. He had to be transferred to the Prisoners' Hospital at Combinado del Este Prison, where his health worsened to a critical point. The authorities knew that the goal was to murder him, to eliminate him. He was then transferred to Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital where he died on February 23, 2010 at approximately 3:30 p.m.

We, Zapata's family and friends, have suffered a great deal of repression since his death. My son died for the sake of his belief in freedom. We have been attacked by groups of people organized by State Security, who want to prevent us from marching to the cemetery after leaving Mass on Sundays. My son's tomb was desecrated by them, the police.

The Castro brothers try to intimidate us, but what they don't know is that this family has never been afraid. This family has never knelt to anyone. Now, with even greater courage, dignity, and principles, we will follow the ideas and words of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who was murdered, who was tortured, and who was denied water for 18 days in order to do away with him. But nobody was ever able to subjugate my son. He never knelt before the dictatorship. He never gave in, and he preferred to die rather than to live on his knees.

This is why we say: Zapata Lives! We shout it in the streets. We shout it wherever we may be. Zapata lives on in our hearts. His example guides the Cuban people in their struggle for freedom.

Reuters- Human rights group Amnesty International urged Cuba to release political prisoners and take other measures to end what it called a "climate of fear" for government opponents, in a report issued on Wednesday.

"The release of all prisoners of conscience and the end of harassment of dissidents are measures that the Cuban government must take immediately and unconditionally," Kerrie Howard, the group's Deputy Americas Director, said in a statement that accompanied the report on Cuba's limits to free expression.

"It is clear that the U.S. embargo has had a negative impact on the country, but it is frankly a lame excuse for violating the rights of the Cuban people," Howard said.

Amnesty International says Cuba has 53 "prisoners of conscience." The independent Cuban Commission on Human Rights says the island has about 190 political prisoners locked away, including the 53 cited by Amnesty.

Cuba views dissidents as mercenaries working for the United States and other enemies to undermine the government.

It has said control of government opponents will end when the United States stops promoting political change in Cuba.

The trade embargo was imposed 48 years ago after Fidel Castro took power in Cuba in a 1959 revolution and remains in place, never having achieved its aim of toppling the government.

Amnesty International said Cuban laws restrict freedom of speech and stifle dissent, and are capriciously interpreted by courts serving the desires of the state.

It said the government "has a virtual monopoly on media while demanding that all journalists join the national journalists' association, which is in turn controlled by the (ruling) Communist Party."

The government blocks access to opposition Internet sites, the group said.

Cuba must "dismantle the repressive machinery built up over decades and implement the reforms needed to make human rights a reality for all Cubans," Howard said.

Cuba came under international criticism after the February death of dissident hunger striker Orlando Zapata Tamayo and in recent weeks has slightly relaxed its policies toward dissidents.

One political prisoner was released earlier this month and 12 other moved to jails closer to their families following a meeting between President Raul Castro and Cardinal Jaime Ortega, head of the Cuban Catholic Church.

Church officials have said they are hoping for the release of more prisoners.

Some 75 Cuban journalists, librarians, human rights activists and other dissidents were arrested and imprisoned during the "black spring," which started March 18, 2003.

Fifty-two of them remain in Raul Castro's gulag, as of June 24, 2010.

There are hundreds, if not thousands more political prisoners jailed in Cuba because of their opposition to tyranny and dedication to freedom. Their suffering is no less that that experienced by those arrested during the "black spring," and they are no less deserving of your prayers and solidarity. (You can read about many of them by clicking on the names on the right side of this page.)

But the Group of 75 — which now stands at 52, after a series of paroles for medical and other reasons, Reinaldo Labrada Peña completing his sentence and Orlando Zapata Tamayo dying as the result of a hunger strike — is deserving of special consideration because they were at the front lines of the struggle to bring real change to Cuba, to bring nothing less than real democracy, freedom and human rights, whether they were activists gathering signatures for the Varela Project or journalists telling the story of Cuba, the real Cuba, for the world to know.

The dictatorship could not stand it so, as the world focused on the imminent U.S. invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003, Fidel Castro struck back, and struck back hard, arresting 75 dissidents and sentencing them to prison terms of up to 28 years for daring to oppose his dictatorship.

And the world barely raised a whisper of protest. The United Nations subsequently elected Cuba to its Human Rights Council and the European Union repealed diplomatic sanctions implemented in response to the crackdown, even though most of those arrested remained in jail.

But in the past four months, since Zapata's death, many who previously chose to ignore the Cuban human rights situation or worse, to appease the Castro dictatorship, have turned on Havana, demanding the release of the Group of 75 and other political prisoners. The Castros have been unmoved, but the pressure has been real.

As horrific as Zapata's suffering was — simply put, he was murdered by the regime — his death has not been in vain. More people now know about the reality of the Castro gulag, and more importantly are now speaking out against it.

We are that much closer to his fellow prisoners being free.

Fidel Castro's action in 2003 was not just an attack on Cuban liberty, it was an assault of freedom everywhere. As long as a single Cuban is jailed because of something he wrote or because he believed every Cuban should have a real vote, we are all less free.

To appease the tyranny in Havana and expect a change in behavior by the dictatorship is as deplorable as the crimes committed by the Castros.

So that's why it is incumbent we all do something on behalf of the Group of 52.

Tell someone why the embargo should remain in place.

Tell someone that Raul Castro is no different than his big brother.

Tell someone Oscar Biscet's story.

Tell someone about Ariel Sigler Amaya, who has been left a shell of his former self after seven years in the gulag. He has been released from prison, and his spirit is strong, but his physical recovery has only begun.

Tell someone about Orlando Zapata Tamayo

If you are Catholic, tell your church leaders to work for the release of all Cuban political prisoners.

Say a prayer.

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.''