18 Cubans arrested on a visit to dissident on hunger strike

Fariñas, who received the Sakharov Prize 2010 of the European Parliament following a hunger strike for 135 days for the release of political prisoners, was arrested admitted to the hospital in the city of Santa Clara, 270 km east of Havana, his mother, Alicia Hernández.

"As I told another person who was with him, named Soto, was to come in and (the agents) told him that no, there was formed something (a riot) and stop" , said Hernandez. "One of the officers grabbed him, pinned him and another gave him blows. I have in the National Police unit," he said.

For its part, the president of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, Elizardo Sanchez, confirmed that Farinas was arrested with other activists who came to the hospital to visit Alcides Rivera, a dissident who has a hunger strike.

"Indeed, around four in the afternoon (stopped) to him and several others in the city of Santa Clara" Sanchez said. "Until this moment is still detained," he said.

Fariñas's mother reported that this is the first time your child is beaten by police, although he has been arrested before. "He had never physically abused," he said. Also reported that 18 other dissidents who came on Monday Provincial Hospital "Arnaldo Milian Castro" with the intention of interest in the striker Rivera, did not have access to the facility and were arrested, but apparently some have been released today.

In September, Fariñas was detained one day when I tried one other opponents of street protests in Santa Clara.