Cuban dissident wins top EU rights prize

(October 21, 2010) The European Parliament on Thursday awarded its top human rights prize to Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas, whose hunger strike this year helped pressure Havana into releasing political prisoners. "Farinas was ready to sacrifice and risk his own health and life as a means of pressure to achieve change in Cuba," European Parliament president Jerzy Buzek told the assembly in Strasbourg while announcing this year’s award. The 48-year-old psychologist, freelance journalist and former soldier spent three weeks in the hospital this year after a 134-day hunger strike to force the government to release opposition leaders jailed in 2003. He had been jailed numerous times previously for activism in opposition to Cuba's single-party communist government. He has conducted more than 20 hunger strikes in the last two decades for various causes, including a campaign against Internet censorship. The European Parliament said on Thursday it will invite Farinas to come to Strasbourg on Dec. 15 to collect its 2010 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. The annual prize, named after late Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov and first awarded in 1988 intends to honour exceptional individuals who combat intolerance, fanaticism and oppression. Previous winners of the Sakharov Prize include Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition leader, and former South African President Nelson Mandela.