Internet restrictions prompt hunger strike

Posted on Fri, Feb. 03, 2006

CUBA
Internet restrictions prompt hunger strike
From Miami Herald Staff and Wire Reports

A dissident journalist in Cuba began a hunger strike this week to
protest his loss of Internet access, one day after The Miami Herald
featured him in a story.

The Miami Herald featured Guillermo Fariñas, 43, in a front-page article
Jan. 22 about a wave of attacks against dissidents. On Jan. 23, Fariñas
said, all the e-mail addresses he regularly used at a cyber cafe were
suddenly blocked.

His hunger strike began Tuesday.

The addresses include those of several Miami exile organizations that
disseminate his reports about Cuban government persecution.

Fariñas, director of the independent Cubanacán Press news agency in the
central province of Villa Clara, said he will not eat or drink until the
restrictions are lifted. It's the former psychologist's 20th hunger
strike in a decade, he said. The longest lasted 11 days.

-- FRANCES ROBLES

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/americas/13779739.htm