HAVANA - Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas concluded the first week of his latest hunger strike -- his 24th in 15 years -- on Friday and was in deteriorating health, but declined to be hospitalized.

"I feel listless and very tired and I am drowsy, but while I am conscious I am not prepared to be hospitalized," Farinas told AFP by telephone from his home in Santa Clara, 280 kilometers (168 miles) east of Havana.

Farinas explained his position to a team of seven doctors who visited him on Thursday at his home to warn him that he needed medical treatment, according to his mother, Alicia Hernandez.

He launched his hunger strike to demand that the government prosecute those "responsible" for the death of fellow activist Juan Soto.

Soto's supporters say he died last month after being taken to the Santa Clara hospital following his arrest in a park and subsequent beating. Cuban official media quoted Soto's doctor and his sister as saying that police brutality had nothing to do with his death.

The official Cuban government-affiliated blog yohandry.com said Farinas was hoping his protest would cause "the greatest political cost to the government" and "score points for the real jackpot, the million-dollar Nobel Peace Prize."

Last year, Farinas staged a 135-day hunger strike designed to secure the release of Cuban political prisoners.

Meanwhile in Miami, the mother of Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata, who died in Cuba on February 23, 2010 on the 85th day of his hunger strike, said Cubans were "losing their fear" of opposing the regime.

Cuban authorities gave Zapato's family permission to leave the country in November, but Tamayo refused to emigrate until the remains of her son had been exhumed in Banes, some 840 kilometers (520 miles) east of Havana.

She arrived in Miami on Thursday bearing Zapato's ashes in a wooden box covered with a Cuban flag.

"The opposition is fighting hard in Cuba, and people are losing their fear," said Zapato's mother, Reina Tamayo.

"The struggle of this mother will continue until Cuba is free and my son's ashes are returned to their homeland," the 62-year-old during a press conference organized by the Cuban Democratic Directorate and other Cuban exile groups.

Zapato's death at the age of 42 drew global attention to the plight of political dissidents in Cuba.