Ladies in White leader Berta Soler said Wilman Villar Mendoza died because the government did not respect his rights and that he was only the latest such victim to die for the same reason.
“Today is a day that the people of Cuba, like Ladies in White and the internal opposition, are in mourning. We are in mourning because we have lost a young man who gave his life for the freedom of the Cuban people,” said Soler, speaking in a tree-shaded Havana park after the group’s weekly silent march demanding the release of political prisoners.
The Ladies in White are Cuba’s leading dissident group and have been marching every Sunday in Havana since a 2003 government crackdown on political opponents.
“Why do we say murdered? This young man was only asking that they review his case, which the government did not listen to,” she said. Villar died on Thursday in a hospital in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba after contracting pneumonia during a hunger strike in prison, dissidents said. He launched his hunger strike shortly after he was arrested in November, put on trial and sentenced to four years in prison for crimes including disobedience, resistance and crimes against the state.
He was put in solitary confinement under difficult conditions which, combined with his lack of nourishment caused the health problems that led to his death, human rights activist Elizardo Sanchez said.
Government opponents said Villar had joined an opposition group called the Cuban Patriotic Union last summer and been an active dissident ever since.