Remembering Orlando Zapata Tamayo #Cuba 🇨🇺

#Cuba #Rip #Remembering #OrlandoZapataTamayo 🇨🇺
A beloved son, and political activist.
Eleven years ago on February 23, 2010 Cuban prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after years of physical and psychological torture that began in 2003 that drove him to repeatedly protest prison conditions and beginning on December 3, 2009 to undertake a water only hunger strike that ended in his death. Aggravating this already extreme situation, was that prison officials repeatedly denied him water in an effort to get him to end the strike. Amnesty International condemned the death at the time and urged Raúl Castro "to immediately and unconditionally release all prisoners of conscience after a political activist died following a hunger strike." Eleven years later and the prisoners of conscience are still there, and the International Red Cross has not had access to Cuban prisons, save for one brief period over 30 years ago in 1989.
#FreeAllPoliticalPrisoners #Freedom4Cuba #PatriaYVida #Justice #communismkills
Source: @centerforfreecuba @johnjsuarez
From #AmnestyInternational :

Orlando Zapata Tamayo was arrested in March 2003 and in May 2004 he was sentenced to three years in prison for “disrespect”, “public disorder” and “resistance”.

He was subsequently tried several times on further charges of “disobedience” and “disorder in a penal establishment”, the last time in May 2009, and was serving a total sentence of 36 years at the time of his death.

“Faced with a prolonged prison sentence, the fact that Orlando Zapata Tamayo felt he had no other avenue available to him but to starve himself in protest is a terrible indictment of the continuing repression of political dissidents in Cuba.

“The death of Orlando Zapata also underlines the urgent need for Cuba to invite international human rights experts to visit the country to verify respect for human rights, in particular obligations in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”