Havana, Cuba, Aug 12, 2009 / 17:22 pm
Two Cuban prisoners who are members of the Christian Liberation Movement are facing “torture and systematic ruthless treatment” at a provincial prison after they declared a hunger strike to protest abuses by the State Security and prison guards.
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas, Coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement, said in an August 11 message sent from Havana that prisoners in the provincial prison of Las Tunas report the “grave situation” of Alfredo Domínguez Batista and José Daniel Ferrer, who declared the hunger strike.
“José Daniel Ferrer has been confined to a cell where he must sleep on the floor and where rats constantly appear out of the hole that serves as his bathroom. It is difficult to imagine a cell with crueler conditions,” Payá related.
Alfredo Domínguez has been sent to a “Dantesque” place of punishment known as “Potosí,” far away from the prison. He reportedly was confined without clothes in another cage called the “punishment cell,” where mosquitoes feed on his unprotected body.