A Cuban appeals court on Thursday upheld a two-year prison sentence for a Havana man who was jailed last month after he appeared in a widely viewed YouTube video shouting there was hunger in Cuba.
In a hearing closed to the press, Juan Carlos Gonzalez Marcos, known as "Panfilo," asked that his sentence for the crime of "dangerousness" be reduced, but a panel of judges refused the request, said Richard Rosello of the independent Cuban Commission on Human Rights.
The case has become a hot issue for the Cuban exile community in the United States, where Spanish-language media have repeatedly broadcast the video and say Gonzalez's jailing is an example of how Cuba's communist-led government quashes discontent and dissent among the population.
Exiles opposed to communist rule in Cuba have started an Internet campaign calling for Gonzalez's release.
In the video, an apparently inebriated Gonzalez, 48, can be seen jumping into the frame, pushing away a person being interviewed about reggaeton and waving his arms.
"What we need here is a little bit of 'jama,'" he shouts, using a Cuban slang word for food.
"We need food, we're hungry here. Listen to what Panfilo tells you from Cuba: food," he says.
The video was posted in April on YouTube, where it has been viewed more than 450,000 times.
Days later, a worried looking and sober Gonzalez appeared in a second video, recanting all he had said. He said he had been visited by police and was concerned he would be arrested.
"I don't want problems because I don't want to know anything about politics. Not there (the United States), or here," he said.
But on Aug. 4, he was detained by police, and a week later a Havana municipal court put him on trial and sent him to jail for two years for "dangerousness", a crime listed in Cuba's penal code.
Cuba's economy is feeling the squeeze of the global economic crisis and damage caused by major hurricanes last year, and President Raul Castro has called on Cubans to try to cut wastage, save energy and increase productivity.
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