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NEWS
Cuba bars
dissident from traveling abroad to accept award
Havana, Nov 15 (EFE).- Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas, who is in a
wheelchair convalescing from his latest hunger strike and an operation,
told Efe on Wednesday that the island's authorities have denied him an
exit visa to travel to Germany to receive a human rights prize.
Fariñas, 43, a psychologist who heads the independent Cubanacan Press
news agency, left the intensive care unit at a hospital in the central
city of Santa Clara on Oct. 18 after a seven-month hunger strike to
demand unfettered access to the Internet.
He said that in late October he began the procedure for requesting that
Cuban authorities give him the necessary permission to travel to the
German city of Weimar to receive the Human Rights Prize that is awarded
there each year on Dec. 10.
"On Sunday, I was informed that I was not going to be granted permission
to go to Germany because I'm in a wheelchair and I could hurt the image
of the (Cuban) Revolution," Fariñas said in a telephone conversation
from his home in Santa Clara.
The dissident explained that, although he is in a wheelchair because he
is still suffering the effects of his hunger strike and a lung
operation, he is in good spirits and ready "to do some independent
reporting."
Fariñas has gone on 20 hunger strikes for various reasons since 1995.
EFE
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