Dr Luarca says he is a refugee

Friday,  February 10, 2006

Dr Luis Luarca, who is on hunger strike in the grounds of the Government Administration building, the Glass House in George Town, calling for an improvement of human rights here and in C

The doctor appeared on Straight Talk which aired on local radio station Hot 104.1 FM on Monday, 5 February and Dr Luarca said host Sandra Catron kept referring to him as a permanent resident even though the doctor tried to explain – without much result – that his refugee status is different from permanent resident status.

Dr Luarca’s travel document and identification card list him as refugee and under the United Nations Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Status of Refugees and Stateless Persons 1951 to which the Cayman Islands has to adhere. 

Dr Luarca who is now at day 12 on the hunger strike said that he has shortness of breath when he speaks too long. He has lost more than 20 lbs and has been robbed and assaulted on different occasions.

Meanwhile in Cuba a journalist was in critical condition at a hospital after more than eight days of a hunger strike protesting the communist regime’s Internet censorship, dissidents said.

   Back...