Cuban dissident briefly detained for second time

Havana, Jan 29 (IANS/EFE) Cuban dissident Guillermo Farias, winner of the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Conscience in 2010, was briefly detained for a second time this week in the central city of Santa Clara.

Alicia Hernandez, mother of the 49-year-old psychologist and independent journalist known for staging more than a score of hunger strikes over the past 15 years to press for greater freedom on the communist-ruled island, told EFE Friday that Farias had been taken home in a police vehicle after being held for 16 hours.

Farias and at least 12 others were detained Thursday while heading to a police station to inquire about the situation of three other dissidents from Santa Clara who had been arrested hours earlier.

This most recent arrest came just a day after Farias and 22 other people were accused of generating a “public disturbance” and briefly detained for protesting the eviction of a pregnant squatter.

–IANS/EFE