(EFE).- The Cuban biologist Ariel Ruiz Urquiolaenvironmental and LGTBI activist, celebrated this Monday eight days in hunger strike in front of the headquarters of the UN Office for Human Rights in Geneva, which he demands to intervene to stop the harassment suffered by his family in Cuba.
“The only thing left for me is to ask the high commissioner (Michelle Bachelet) to adhere to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has been violated against my sister and me through medical torture and crimes against humanity,” he told Efe. the Cuban activist, resident in Switzerland since 2019.
Ruiz Urquiola accuses the Cuban regime of having expelled him and his sister from the University of Havana for their political activism, of trying to seize the land they work after not being able to dedicate themselves to teaching, and now of prevent her sister from returning to Cuba after traveling to the US to treat breast cancer.
Only one person in charge of the office that Bachelet directs has been interested in her health these days, for which she considered the response of an institution “disastrous”
In addition, the activist affirms that the Cuban authorities inoculated him with the HIV virus in 2019, when he was on another hunger strike, and have given his sister placebo treatments on several occasions instead of the medicines she needs against her cancer.
“Now that my sister is prohibited from entering Cuba, my mother is left alone and they are going for her: they want to confiscate our farm,” said Ruiz Urquiola, who has been sleeping outdoors in a Geneva square since July 4, and assured that it will remain there “as long as the body lasts”.
“The Geneva medical services and the police have been very concerned about my health, but my choice is to continue,” he said, and blamed the UN Office for the medical consequences that the current strike may have, the fifth it has carried out in almost 20 years of activism.
The Cuban expert added that only one person in charge of the office headed by Bachelet has been interested in her health these days, for which he considered “disastrous” the response of an institution before which she had already carried out a more brief strike hunger in 2020.
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