Cuban dissident hunger striker Guillermo Farinas has asked Polish anti-communist icon Lech Walesa to lay a wreath on his grave when Cuba is free, the former Polish president told AFP.

The two spoke on telephone on Thursday, several hours before Farinas was hospitalised in critical condition after losing consciousness in his third week of fasting to win the release of 26 political prisoners who are in need of medical treatment.

"I was concerned, I tried to convince him to break off the hunger strike. I told him that in order to build a free Cuba they will need people like him alive," said Walesa, who led the Solidarity trade union that defied and ultimately defeated communist rule in Poland.

But Walesa said the 48-year-old cyberjournalist was adamant in continuing his hunger strike.

"He replied: 'if I die, I ask you to lay a wreath on my grave when Cuba is free'."

Farinas, who had steadfastly refused medical treatment, lost consciousness several hours later and was hospitalised in his home town of Santa Clara, around 280 kilometers (175 miles) east of Havana.

He has vowed to press ahead "to the end" with his protest fast, which he began February 24, the day after political prisoner Orlando Zapata died on the 85th day of his own hunger strike.