Wednesday marks the 49th day that Guillermo del Sol has gone without food. Tuesday, a local doctor looked at Adrián with concern after feeling how cold his father’s body was. The man spends hours praying and sleeping, lying on a mattress on the floor of his home in Villa Clara, a city of nearly 250,000 inhabitants in the center of the island.

Guillermo — a leader of the Church of Christ in Cuba and an activist who reports on violations of religious freedom for Christian Solidarity Worldwide — is demanding that the Havana regime release 18 political prisoners, “as a symbol and on behalf of all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in Cuba.”

Pushing one’s body to the brink has long been a strategy used to draw global attention to injustices. The Cuban dissident movement has employed hunger strikes against the Castro regime since the 1960s, led by the historic political prisoners known as Los Plantados (The Unyielding Ones).

Most of the 18 are Guillermo’s neighbors and friends from central Cuba, as well as fellow believers — such as the young poet María Cristiana Garrido and the veteran prisoner Miguel Díaz Bousa, now elderly, who has spent over 30 years in socialist prisons.

Guillermo states that, “after deep prayer,” he decided he had to do something to draw the world’s attention to the more than 1,200 political prisoners after learning of the arrest and the revocation of the conditional release of dissident Leonel Tristá García.

Every day, Adrián takes photos of the man who gave him life, watching his emaciated limbs and seeing his abdomen rise and fall with his slow breathing. He sends the images via an instant messaging app to Mario Félix Lleonart, a pastor and friend in Maryland who has become his link to the outside world.

Lleonart noted that Guillermo is a courageous independent journalist who has endured theft and arrests at the hands of the Castro regime’s political police over the years.

In explaining his protest, he stated he was inspired by the gospel, citing the words of Jesus in John 15:13: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

Adrián is truly desperate, knowing his father’s iron will. During the strike, Guillermo has lost over 30 pounds and is suffering from severe dehydration. The situation is further complicated by chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes, severe hypertension, chronic asthma, heart disease, and a history of thrombosis.

Monitoring of his vital signs this week revealed drastic fluctuations in glucose levels and extremely high, unstable blood pressure — factors that substantially increase the risk of heart attack or stroke, according to press reports.

Adrián has frantically typed a plea for help on his Facebook profile, addressing the international community and the administration of President Donald Trump. “His body is giving out, and we cannot afford to look the other way,” he said. “We need this situation to reach those with the power to intervene and demand answers from the Cuban regime before it is too late. A human life is in imminent danger. Help us ensure his struggle does not fade into silence.”

Guillermo is putting his own life on the line for the freedom of other Cubans — some he does not even know, such as brothers Jorge and Nadir Martín, imprisoned for protesting peacefully during the massive popular uprising of July 11, 2021. He also acts on behalf of Cubans who do not share his Christian faith, such as Yoruba practitioners Loreto Hernández and his wife, Donaida Paseiro.

Such nobility of spirit must not be abandoned. Let us pray and share to stand with the brave who risk their lives to end tyranny, doing so with the clarity of going into battle in the name of Jesus.