Wilmar Villar Mendoza (also written as Wilman) was a

Cuban dissident The Cuban dissident movement is a political movement in Cuba whose aim is to replace the current government with a liberal democracy. According to Human Rights Watch, the Cuban government represses nearly all forms of political dissent. Backgrou ...

. He was born around 1980. He married Maritza Pelegrino Cabrales and had two children. He lived in the Contramaestre area of

Santiago de Cuba Santiago de Cuba is the second-largest city in Cuba and the capital city of Santiago de Cuba Province. It lies in the southeastern area of the island, some southeast of the Cuban capital of Havana. The municipality extends over , and contains t ...

Biography

He was arrested in July 2011 after his mother in law alerted neighbors and police about a marital dispute involving domestic violence and charged for assault, disrespecting authority and resisting arrest. At some time between August and September 2011, he joined the Cuban Patriotic Union and worked on dissident activity. He participated in a public protest against the government. In November of the year he was sentenced to four years in prison. He was sent to Aguaderas prison in

. His wife Maritza Pelegrino attributed her husband's political activism to anger over his father's death in custody five years earlier, though she could not explain why he joined the movement only last year. According to the ''Wall Street Journal'' and other news organizations, Villar started a hunger strike soon after arriving at the prison. He was put in solitary confinement. He was sent to Juan Bruno Zayas Hospital in January 2012 after suffering health problems. The

Ladies in White Ladies in White ( es, italics=no, Damas de Blanco) is an opposition movement in Cuba founded in 2003 by wives and other female relatives of jailed dissidents and those who have been made to disappear by the government. The women protest the impri ...

and the CPU both had a

vigil A vigil, from the Latin ''vigilia'' meaning ''wakefulness'' (Greek: ''pannychis'', or ''agrypnia'' ), is a period of purposeful sleeplessness, an occasion for devotional watching, or an observance. The Italian word ''vigilia'' has become genera ...

to support him. In January 2012 he died. The government claimed he had

multiple organ failure Multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) is altered organ function in an acutely ill patient requiring medical intervention to achieve homeostasis. Although Irwin and Rippe cautioned in 2005 that the use of "multiple organ failure" or "multisy ...

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

, and

septic shock Septic shock is a potentially fatal medical condition that occurs when sepsis, which is organ injury or damage in response to infection, leads to dangerously low blood pressure and abnormalities in cellular metabolism. The Third International Con ...

. The

hunger strike A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke a feeling of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most ...

had lasted over 50 days.

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

designated Villar a prisoner of conscience, the announcement coming one day after his death. Representatives from the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

and the governments of the United States and Spain made statements about his death, criticizing the Cuban government. The government also stated he was not a dissident, but that he had been arrested for violence and injuring his wife at the 2011 protest. The government also stated he had not been on

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Villar, Wilman Amnesty International prisoners of conscience held by Cuba Cuban people who died in prison custody Cuban dissidents Prisoners who died in Cuban detention

Biography

See also

References