Vladimir Morera Bacallao Ends Hunger Strike

Vladimir Morera Bacallao Ends Hunger Strike / 14ymedio
Posted on January 4, 2016

14ymedio, Havana, 4 January 2016 – Government opponent Vladimir Bacallao
Morera has ended his hunger strike, having begun to eat on 30 December,
according to information received by 14ymedio from Librado Linares. The
prisoner spent more than 80 days without eating to demand his release,
after being condemned to four years imprisonment for the alleged crime
of "injuries."

"Last Wednesday they began to give him a serum, and this altered his
consciousness and made him lose his will, and they began supplying
food," said Linares. Linares, the leader of the Cuban Reflection
Movement (MCR), has not been able to visit the patient in the
intermediate care unit at the Arnaldo Milian Provincial Hospital in
Santa Clara, where he continues to be confined, be he spoke on repeated
occasions with his family.

Morera Bacallao weighed less than 95 pounds as a result of the hunger
strike demanding the annulment of his sentence. At present, according to
reports from his family is in a state of physical recovery, and is
"digesting well what he eats," said Linares.

The opponent has put a sign on the facade of his house during the April
1915 People's Power elections where he proclaimed, "I vote for my
freedom and not in some elections where I cannot elect my president."

The text unleashed the fury among the government rulers of the town of
Manicaragua. In the midst of an act of repudiation against him the
second secretary of the Communist Party in the municipality, Ivis
Herrera, he fell after slipping on melted asphalt that had been thrown
at the Bacallao Morera's home. In the fall Herrera suffered a blow to
the head that is the center of the allegations against Bacallao Morera.

This was the second time that the dissident declared a hunger strike
after entering prison. During the first 40 days he remained without
food, until officials promised to review his case. On 9 October he
resumed fasting, and continued until the end of the year. To date, it is
not known whether the decision to stops the hunger strike has been
accompanied by a new commitment on the part of prison authorities to
ease or overturn his conviction.

On Tuesday, the United States asked Havana to release the dissident
given the deterioration of his health. US State Department spokesman
Mark Toner told journalists that Washington was "deeply concerned" about
Morera Bacallao deteriorating health, and called "urgently" for him to
be freed from prison.

Source: Vladimir Morera Bacallao Ends Hunger Strike / 14ymedio |
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