A CUBAN political prisoner died on Tuesday after 83 days on hunger strike in protest at his treatment in jail.
Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a 42-year-old plumber, died in a military hospital in the capital Havana, according to his family.
Considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, he was jailed for demanding the release of another dissident and is the first political prisoner to starve himself to death on the communist island since 1972.
Zapata’s mother said her son’s death was “premeditated murder” by the Cuban authorities.
In an interview with Miami’s El Nuevo Herald newspaper Reina Luisa Tamayo said: “They managed to do what they wanted. They ended the life of a fighter for human rights.”
Cuban President Raúl Castro has expressed regret about the death and said he was not tortured or executed because neither practice existed in Cuba, according to a state-run website.
Cuba’s regime customarily refers to political prisoners as agents of the United States. Since the communist revolution in 1959, the island’s government has suppressed all political opposition to its rule.
Zapata was arrested in a crackdown on dissidents in 2003. Initially sentenced to three years in prison for disrespecting the regime, by May of last year his term had been increased to 36 years following a series of clashes with prison authorities, according to Amnesty.
During his detention he was convicted of “disorder in a penal establishment” and among other acts his refusal to wear a prison uniform, claiming as a political prisoner he would not dress as a common criminal.
His mother said Zapata was “skin and bones, his stomach is just a hole” and his back was “tattooed with blows” by the time he was transferred to a military hospital on February 17th.
Amnesty says there are 55 prisoners of conscience in Cuba and that repression has increased in recent months.
“We have seen an increasing number of arrests, detentions and harassment in Cuba. There is ongoing intimidation of human rights activists,” says Gerardo Ducos, Cuba researcher at Amnesty International.
Some 50-jailed dissidents have sent an open letter to Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pleading for him to intercede on their behalf.
President Lula was due to meet Fidel and Raul Castro yesterday as part of his three-day trip to the island.
