After 204 days in prison and two hunger strikes, Cuban journalist Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias was released yesterday following months of lobbying by the International Press Institute (IPI) and other media and human rights organisations.

“Victory,” tweeted Roberto J. Guerra, director of the independent news agency Hablemos Press, where Martínez had worked prior to his arrest on Sept. 16, 2012.  “We thank all the individuals and organisations who supported the campaign to demand Calixto’s freedom.”

“I am ecstatic that Calixto Martínez has finally been released from prison,” IPI Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie said today.  “Let us hope that he will remain free – and that this day will mark the beginning of a more positive relationship between Cuban authorities and the island’s few independent media.”

“IPI will continue to fight for the right of all journalists in the Caribbean to report free from government intimidation, and for the repeal of criminal defamation laws in the region.”

Though he was never officially charged, Martínez had been accused of criminal contempt toward Cuban president Raúl Castro and his brother, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, ostensibly in relation to Martinez’s reporting on a cholera outbreak on the island last summer.  He was arrested near Havana’s José Martí International Airport, where he was apparently investigating the arrival of emergency medical supplies.

In January, Amnesty International named Martínez a prisoner of conscience, and reported that he was being held in an isolation cell without light, hygienic facilities, and bedsheets.

“My spirit is strong, but my body is a bit weak due to the two stages of malnutrition,” Martínez told the news site Café Fuerte.  “I wasn’t surprised that they [the government] freed me, I knew that there was a lot of pressure.”

When asked about his plans for the future, Martínez left no doubt: “Continue working strongly for freedom in Cuba and report to the world on what is happening here.”

IPI will return to the Caribbean next week to lobby for the removal of criminal defamation laws in Antigua and Barbuda, Guyana, Suriname, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, and Curaçao.