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Guillermo Farinas was arrested on Friday, his family said, three days before opposition officials intended to hold a protest.
Cuban dissident, journalist and human rights campaigner Guillermo Farinas was arrested on Friday, his family reported.
The arrest on Friday came three days before opposition leaders intended to hold a protest banned by the government.
“They arrested him today. They took him around 2:10 p.m. [19:10 GMT]Farina’s mother, Alicia Hernandez, told AFP.
She said her son was taking antibiotics as a result of a urinary tract infection.
“An ambulance and two police patrols came and took Arnaldo Milian to Castro Hospital,” Hernandez said.
“I was told that a prosecutor would visit him tomorrow to report him, but we don’t know why.”
Farinas, 59, is a psychologist by training and has worked as an independent journalist and human rights activist. He won the European Parliament’s 2010 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
In the last 20 years or so, Farinas has gone on 23 hunger strikes to protest against the Cuban government, which has significantly damaged his health.
He is a member of the Cuban National Union, the most active political opposition in the country.
Farinas’ arrest came on Monday ahead of a demonstration by the opposition demanding the release of Cuban political prisoners.
The communist government on the island has banned the rally, but organizers plan to move forward anyway.
Government officials have complained that protest organizers have backed Washington and want to bring about a change of government.
President Miguel Diaz-Canel said his supporters were “ready to defend the revolution” in the face of an imperial strategy (in the United States) to try to destroy the revolution.
“We are calm, confident in ourselves, but vigilant and vigilant, and we are also ready to defend the revolution in the face of any interventionist action against our people,” Diaz-Canel said in a televised appearance on Friday.
“We are a revolution open to dialogue, open to debate,” he added, “but we are a society closed to pressure, closed to blackmail and closed to foreign interference.”
Cuban officials, who deny the existence of political prisoners in the country, consider the opposition illegal and say it is funded by the US.
Unprecedented national street protests shook Cuba in July when people took to the streets, shouting “freedom” and “we are hungry”.
Protests left one person dead, dozens injured and 1,175 arrested. Half of them are still in prison, says Cubalex human rights group.
The main organizer of Monday’s march, Yunior Garcia, said on Friday authorities had warned that he would be arrested if he proceeded to march on his own a day earlier.
“They also told me what prison they would take me to,” Garcia told AFP, stressing that he would do so in solitary protest.
“I’m not going to hide.”
Garcia is a 39-year-old playwright who founded the Archipelago, a group that urges Cubans to take to the streets on Monday to protest against the government.
He says the goal of walking alone in downtown Havana is to reduce the risk of violence.
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