More than thirty doctors from South Florida (USA) on Thursday urged international health organizations to “speak out in favor of the end of the repression” against at least two dozen Cuban opponents who have been on a hunger strike for some 20 days in Cuba.
In a letter dated Miami and addressed to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the World Health Organization (WHO), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the World Medical Association (WMA), the doctors request “the attention and immediate intervention that these cases warrant”.
“The signatories are doctors concerned about the progressive deterioration of the health and potential death of 25 Cuban human rights promoters who are on hunger strike,” begins the letter published on the digital platform Change.org along with a petition for signatures to save the lives of the strikers.
On behalf of the 34 signatories, Doctors Manuel Alzugaray, Ramón Domínguez, Vicente Lago and Omar Vento highlighted in a press conference today in Miami that the activists of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu), who carry out the protest, enter a critical phase of the hunger strike.
“Once they enter the third week, a greater deterioration of the people who carry out this type of strike begins. Failures in motor function and cognitive function can occur,” said surgeon and orthopedist Alzugaray.
The leader of Unpacu, José Daniel Ferrer, began a fast on March 20 – which was joined by activists and sympathizers inside and outside the island – to demand an end to acts of repression and harassment against dissidents, as well as the uprising of a police siege that has been besieging the organization’s headquarters in Santiago de Cuba for almost three weeks.
“Ferrer has a delicate state of health, I speak with him almost every day that he is not incommunicado,” Rosa María Payá told Efe, who was at the press conference representing the Cuba Decide citizen platform, of which, she said, the strikers are promoters on the island.
“At the moment we are very concerned because they cut the internet so that activists cannot transmit what they are going through. Two days ago (the state company) ETECSA cut off communication with them, ”said Payá.
The activist commented that the letter sent today has been an initiative of more than thirty doctors from South Florida and that what Cuba Decide has done is “accompany them.”
“In accordance with the principles that these organizations defend, the objective is to demand that they act so that the fence is broken and that there can be medical assistance to the strikers and save their lives,” said Payá about the recipients of the letter.
“The Cuban people are going through one of the most difficult periods in recent decades,” reads the letter, in which they urge international health organizations, “in accordance with the ideals and precepts that govern” their institutions, to act to “seek assistance to those whose lives are at risk.”
“From Cuba Decide we neither encourage nor support the hunger strike because we do not make a strategy with the life of any activist,” said Payá.
“Those responsible for this are Raúl Castro and (President Miguel) Díaz-Canel; It is from them who should be required,” he remarked.