Havana, Jul 29 (EFE).- Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas came home from the hospital Thursday to continue recovering from a months-long hunger strike to press for the release of ailing political prisoners.
"I feel strange at home," he told Efe by telephone from the central city of Santa Clara. "I'm adjusting, hugging my daughter, my sister. Waiting for my niece, whom I consider my adoptive daughter."
The 48-year-old psychologist and independent journalist said he has received "much solidarity" from his neighbors and that he plans "to begin writing articles again as soon as I can."
Though the doctors decided he was well enough to leave the hospital, they told him he needs to see a cardiologist every two weeks, Fariñas said.
And he will have to continue using a wheelchair until his physicians give him approval to begin physical therapy and resume walking.
Fariñas began his hunger strike after the Feb. 24 death of political prisoner Orlando Zapata following an 85-day fast. He ended the protest on June 8 in response to the Cuban government's pledge to release 52 political prisoners.
He spent most of the hunger strike in the intensive care unit at Arnaldo Milian Castro Hospital in Santa Clara, where he was admitted March 11 after losing consciousness on two occasions.
A dissident physician who has been following the case, Ismeli Iglesias, told Efe that Fariñas will require continuing treatment for thrombosis in his jugular vein, a problem that developed during the hunger strike.
Fariñas has undertaken 24 hunger strikes since 1995.
In the weeks since Fariñas abandoned his latest protest, 20 political detainees released by Cuba's communist government have gone into what they hope will be temporary exile in Spain.
Political prisoner Ariel Sigler, a quadriplegic who was paroled on health grounds early last month, traveled to Miami on Wednesday for medical treatment.
