Ah, Yes, Cuba's Just Great

Reuters: Cuban on hunger strike for Internet access---

HAVANA (Reuters) - A Cuban dissident who has been on a hunger strike for 36 days to demand unfettered Internet access is refusing medication and his health is deteriorating rapidly, fellow dissidents said on Wednesday.

Guillermo Farinas, a 41-year-old psychologist, went on a hunger strike on January 31 to press Cuba's Communist authorities to respect his right to freedom of information and allow him Internet access, which is controlled by the government.

Farinas was moved to a hospital in his hometown of Santa Clara, in central Cuba, where he is being kept on an IV drip.

"The hunger strike continues. He has been isolated in intensive care since Thursday," said Niurbis Diaz, who worked with Farinas as an independent reporter. "He is refusing pills and injections," she told Reuters by telephone.

Cuba, like China, controls access to the Internet. Direct access to the World Wide Web is generally only available to government-approved individuals, but passwords can be purchased on the black market.

The postal service offers an e-mail service, but users can only surf Cuban Web sites. International Web sites run by exile groups are routinely blocked by Cuba's state-run servers.

The U.S. State Department, in its 2005 human rights report published on Wednesday, said Cuba was a "totalitarian state" that represses dissents, has jailed 333 people for political reasons and severely curbs freedom of speech and information.

"The government controlled all access to the Internet and took steps to censor all electronic mail, disallowing any attachments," the report said.

What a nice place. I can see why Hollywood is so keen on promoting it and the rotten people who turned it into what it is now (namely Che Guevara and friends), with movies like The Motorcycle Diaries.

Ironic that the people who so often scream about imaginary censorship by the Bush Administration are so eager to make friends with a government that actually does suppress and censor and jail dissenters. If only the Movie Celebrities actually lived in reality.