Health of Cuban hunger-strike blogger falters

Fariñas started his hunger strike on Wednesday, Feb. 24, a day after political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after more than 80 days on hunger strike.

The effects of his protest are being aggravated by the fact that Fariñas' body has been weakened by some 20 prior hunger strikes.

He is still conscious, but Cuban blogger Laritza Diversent, who is in Villa Clara, wrote this afternoon on fellow blogger Claudia Cadelo's Twitter feed that Fariñas estimates his condition may be critical by Tuesday. Cadelo said she believes that's when he may be hospitalized.

"We have all failed trying to dissuade Fariñas from the strike," said human rights activist Elizardo Sanchez.

Fariñas is not demanding anything for himself, telling the Spanish newspaper Diario Público that he will end his protest once the dictatorship releases from its gulag political prisoners who are seriously ill.

It is the least he can do, he says, to demonstrate that Zapata's death was not an accident but the result of the Castro regime's cruelty.

Cuba, however, does not need any more martyrs.

Cuba needs its heroes, like Fariñas and Zapata, to be strong, to be alive, to lead.

Fariñas, a survivor of many prior hunger strikes, knows the risks he is taking. He is even hastening the effects by also refusing to ingest any liquids.

His body already weakened by his previous protests, Fariñas knows the odds are against him.

"I am convinced, and I am pessimistic. I could die within days," he tells the Spanish paper.

"They will not budge an inch but neither will I."

Read the entire interview with Fariñas here.

For more about Fariñas' protest -- and why hunger strikes are so tragic -- read this prior post.