During the course of his life, Mr. Fariñas has conducted 26 hunger strikes over the years to protest various elements of the Cuban government and spent more than 11 years in prison. Mr. Fariñas was arrested in Cuba many times and came close to death after staging a 134-day hunger strike in 2010 in protest at the death of fellow dissident Orlando Zapata. He ended the protest in July when Cuban President Raul Castro authorized the release of 52 of the island’s most prominent prisoners of conscience.
In 2010 he was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament. December 2010 the Cuban government denied Mr. Fariñas an exit visa necessary to travel to Strasbourg to accept the award. In response, the European Parliament said that it would have an empty chair to represent him at the ceremony. In 2013 the travel ban was lifted and Mr. Fariñas finally received his Prize.
Mr. Fariñas underlined the special role of Lithuania in the human rights defending process. Lithuania is the last EU member state that has yet to ratify the European Union’s cooperation agreement with Cuba signed in 2017. Now he has called on Lithuania to block the agreement, arguing that the current regime must first change its attitude towards human rights.
During the Q&A session, students and faculty members asked Mr. Fariñas a broad spectrum of issues: about the position in modern Cuban policy, economic sanctions are the meeting of Raul Castro with the president of the United States symbolized the great changes and declared the openness.
