A Cuban dissident artist was taken to hospital Sunday, health officials in Havana said, on the eighth day of a hunger strike to protest against authorities seizing his art.
Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, 33, is the leader of the San Isidro protest movement (MSI) of artists and intellectuals pressing for free speech and other rights in the communist nation.
The Cuban government has accused Otero Alcantara and other movement members of political revolt funded by the United States.
The Havana public health department said Sunday the artist had been taken to the emergency unit of the General Calixto Garcia university hospital in the capital with symptoms of “voluntary starvation.”
A later statement by the health authority claimed an examination showed that “starvation does not correspond with the parameters of the patient,” and there “was hydration and food.”
Images on state television showed Otero Alcantara arriving at the hospital in an ambulance at dawn, stepping out in a green gown and walking inside supported by medical staff.
