HAVANA, March 4 (UPI) -- An opponent of Cuban leader Raul Castro says he is on a hunger strike following in the footsteps of dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo who died last month.
Guillermo Farinas, 48, a psychologist and independent journalist currently under house arrest, says he will fast until death if necessary, Radio France Internationale reported Thursday.
"Since 1959 the opposition and political prisoners have been tortured and driven to their deaths in prisons and Cuban hospitals," Farinas says.
Farinas spent 11 years in a Cuban prison after being arrested in 1989.
His doctors say the hunger strike has left him in a very "fragile" state of health and he should abandon it.
Zapata died Feb. 23, 82 days after he started a hunger strike to demand respect for human rights and protest mistreatment in prison.
