Cuban hunger striker begins tour in Miami | Miami Herald

A frequent Cuban hunger striker and dissident arrived Sunday in Miami ahead of Cuban Independence Day, as part of a tour that will include several U.S. stops before going to Europe.

“I have come to the capital of the Cuban exile,” a smiling Guillermo Fariñas said in Spanish. “We will show that we are one nation.”

He is scheduled to meet with community leaders and dissidents in Miami.

Until this year, if Fariñas had been granted permission to leave Cuba, he would have forfeited his right to return. But in January he was told he could leave and return after a new law ended the island’s exit visa requirement.

On Monday, another Cuban opposition leader, Berta Soler, co-founder of the Ladies in White, will be joined in Miami by singer Gloria Estefan to celebrate Cuban Independence Day.

El Nuevo Herald staff writer Juan Carlos Chavez contributed to this report.