Guillermo Fariñas
| Guillermo Fariñas | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
3 January 1962 Santa Clara, Cuba |
| Nationality | Cuban |
| Occupation | journalist |
| Known for | hunger strike, dissident journalism |
| Awards | Sakharov Prize (2010) |
Guillermo Fariñas Hernández (born 3 January 1962) ("El Coco") is a Cuban doctor of psychology, independent journalist and political dissident in Cuba. He has conducted 23 hunger strikes over the years to protest various elements of the Cuban regime. He has stated that he is ready to die in the struggle against censorship in Cuba.
Fariñas was born in Santa Clara. Fariñas's father, Guillermo Fariñas Key, had been part of the Cuban military forces, and fought in the Congo under Che Guevara in the 1960s. After completing ninth grade, he too began to study in the Camilo Cienfuegos military school, after which he went to Havana as a precadet in the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, where he studied intelligence and counterintelligence with the special forces. Fariñas formed part of the unit sent to guard the Peruvian embassy during the Mariel Boatlift.
Fariñas underwent special forces training with Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese trainers. In 1980 he was deployed to Angola, where he fought under Colonel Antonio Enrique Luzon. As a special forces soldier in the Commandos for Demolition, Penetration, and Sabotage, he participated in eleven missions into the UNITA rearguard, for which he received military decorations. He received two bullet wounds. In 1981 Fariñas went to the U.S.S.R. to Tambov where he studied at the Airborne Academy but, due to official negligence, suffered exposure to a chemical nerve agent that damaged his health to the point that he had to be discharged from the army.
In 1983 he began studying in the Department of Psychology in the Universidad Central de las Villas. In 1986 he was nearly explled for being part of a Freudian group which was considered sympathetic to Perestroika and Glasnost. He graduated in 1988. Unable to become a psychology professor because he was considered politically unreliable, Fariñas began working as a clinical psychologist in Camajuaní. He was the Secretary General of the Young Communist League. When he opposed the execution of Arnaldo Ochoa Sánchez, he was expelled from his clinic and lost his membership in the Communist Youth League.
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