Jailed Cuban dissident in a coma following hunger strike
Friday, April 9, 2004
MIAMI, USA (AFP): Jailed Cuban dissident
Leonardo Bruzon Avila is in a coma and at risk of dying, following a lengthy
hunger strike, Miami-based Cuban opposition groups said Thursday.
Bruzon Avila, who has been jailed in Cuba without trial for over two years,
weighs only 80 pounds and is weakening rapidly, according to the Cuban
Democratic Directorate, a Miami-based group that opposes President Fidel
Castro's communist rule. "This is not only
the fault of the jailers, but also of the authorities of this country. I wrote
several letters to them, but they never answered," Bruzon Avila's mother said,
according to the group. "We must not let
Bruzon die; at this crucial moment we appeal to the international community
and the diaspora," another dissident, Carlos Rios Otero, said in a telephone
call from Havana, according to the group.
Bruzon is currently held at a prisoners' ward of Havana's La Covadonga
hospital, according to the Council for Freedom in Cuba, another anti-Castro
group. Bruzon Avila is demanding that
authorities show him the charges against him.
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