Ten Cuban dissidents are seeking asylum at the US naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba, but "are being treated like terrorists," a blogger close to the Cuban government charged Monday.
The 10 including dissident journalists Olienny Valladares Capote and Adolfo Pablo Borraza Chaple, have been at the US base on Cuba's southeastern tip, for three months and started a hunger strike February 3, blogger Yohandry wrote.
The blogger did not say how the group arrived at the tightly secured US base, which Cuba says the United States operates on its territory against its will. The United States claims it has a valid lease.
"Both journalists have said that at the Guantanamo Bay naval base refugees are treated like terrorists," the blogger added, alluding to the US holding terror suspects there.
Referring to their reported hunger strike, Yohandry said it was not clear if US authorities were force-feeding the group "as Americans usually do in such cases."
After the 1959 revolution that brought ex-president Fidel Castro to power in Havana many Cubans tried to make it to the base, which is surrounded by mine fields, in a bid to emigrate to the United States.
Cuba -- the Americas' only one-party Communist regime -- does not have full diplomatic relations with the United States.
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