President Obama, Bahrain’s “freedom or death” strike by Al-Khawaja doesn’t have to end like Cuba’s – ask your “friends” to free him”

Statement by the Press Secretary on the Death of Cuban Activist Wilmar Villar

President Obama’s thoughts and prayers are with the wife, family, and friends of Wilmar Villar, a young and courageous defender of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Cuba who launched a hunger strike to protest his incarceration and succumbed to pneumonia.

Villar’s senseless death highlights the ongoing repression of the Cuban people and the plight faced by brave individuals standing up for the universal rights of all Cubans. The United States will not waver in our support for the liberty of the Cuban people. We will remain steadfast in our outreach to the Cuban people through unlimited Cuban American family visits and remittances, purposeful travel, and humanitarian assistance to dissidents and their families in support of their legitimate desire to freely determine Cuba’s future.

Cuban dissident Wilmar Villar dies on hunger strike
20 January, 2012 – Telegraph

Villar, 31, died on Thursday in a prison in Santiago as he was protesting a four-year sentence for “contempt, resistance and assault” on the government.

The father-of-two was one of 60 political prisoners thought to be held by Cuba and is the second to die on a hunger strike in the last two years.

Havana refused to comment but his death drew criticism from governments around the world as well as human rights organisations and Cuban opposition groups.

A White House statement said: “Villar’s senseless death highlights the ongoing repression of the Cuban people and the plight faced by brave individuals standing up for the universal rights of all Cubans.”

Amnesty International said it had been on the verge of designating Mr Villar a prisoner of conscience, a status granted to people believed to be held for no reason other than their political views.

“The Cuban government bears complete moral, political and legal responsibility for the death of Wilmar, because he was in the custody of the authorities,” a spokeswoman for the Cuban Committee for Human Rights and National Reconciliation said. …more