Cuban activist halts hunger strike

After over three months of not eating solid foods, Cuban political prisoner Jorge Luis ''Antúnez'' Garcia said that he will end his hunger strike.

As reported on the Miami Herald’s website, Garcia admitted that his protest had left him “very thin” and his weight dropped nearly seventy pounds. Nevertheless, one of Garcia’s family members said he felt a “healthy pride” in his which apparently included the drinking of liquids.

Garcia’s demonstration was done to call attention to the imprisonment of his activist brother-in-law as well as to force the government to fix the house his sister lost in a 2008 hurricane.

A former political prisoner, ''Antúnez'' has not been shy in speaking out against the Castro regime and he has vowed to carry on a new “series of confrontational acts”:

Antúnez has been on hunger strikes before, especially while serving a 17-year sentence for ''enemy propaganda'' and sabotage resulting in a public protest in a plaza and his subsequent attempt at prison escape.

He was released from prison in 2007 after serving his full term. A year later, the Cuban government revealed that he had accepted funds from a Miami organization founded by Santiago Alvarez, a hard-line Miami exile activist with ties to terrorism who is serving a prison sentence for arms trafficking.

Earlier this year, Antúnez was quoted criticizing programming on the U.S. government's Radio and TV Marti but later balked when he felt his comments were misconstrued to suggest he does not support the anti-Castro broadcasts.

Image- Havana Journal (Image of Jorge Luis Garcia before his hunger strike)
Online Sources- miamiherald.com