Meñique Went out to Travel / Luis Felipe Rojas
Meñique Went out to Travel / Luis Felipe Rojas Translating Cuba
"Meñique Went out to Travel" — that's the name of a famous children's song. Those same travels were awarded to me by the combined forces of State Security (G-2) and the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) on April 28th. At 7:39 AM, Lieutenant Yasmani Suarez Ramirez showed up at my house along with FOUR other police agents to detain me. I was taken to the local police unit and, half an hour later, G2 Major Alberto Aberetis and Lieutenant Ignacio Wilson Mulet transferred me to the city of Holguin where I was interrogated in the G2 Operations Unit. The questions and offenses were the task of Major Jesus Jimenez Ballagas, who has been in charge of such an undesirable job for 6 years now. It was yet another interrogation, and yet another threat.
They once again mentioned Law 88 ("The Gag Law"), they mentioned the 25 year sentence they once gave to Prospero Gainza Aguero during the Black Spring of 2003 and what it means at this moment. Although we know very well what they are capable of, it's always good to hear from the mouths of those who sustain the Castro machinery that they do not only lash out against the 75 of the Black Spring, as they did on that occasion, but against any others who need to be attacked. They'll put them all in prison.
Considering that they are phrases which the Granma newspaper does not publish, then it's not bad that we make them public. That's the will power for change which the ingenious say that the government of General-President RC practices. Amid those threats against human rights defenders is that they outline the excellent relationship between the current government, the Catholic hierarchy, and other elites which prowl about the corpse. There is no doubt that we are the non-conformists, those who, every day, disrupt that happy union which has been established for 52 years.
The Official Letter of Warning handed to me was based on accusations against me for distributing false news about national and local events, for sending out information about prisons in Guantanamo, Santiago de Cuba, and Holguin, for participating in interviews made to me via phone from the other shores, for writing about the subject of the "re-structuring of the labor force" (a term which the government uses to describe layoffs).
I made my arguments clear to Major Ballagas, which were pretty much the following: Every citizen has the right to give their opinion about any subject which they desire, it is the leftist dictatorship of the Castro brothers which has amputated all information channels upon establishing a single press with sealed lips. Not even if they liberate all Cuban political prisoners will I stop informing about the Cuban prisons. In fact, more than 90% of my journalistic reports have to do with prisons and are stories of beatings, inhumane treatment, poor management of prisoner-functionary relations, and other violations committed by the Interior Order Functionaries, along with the re-educators and the Head of the Penitentiary Establishment Department who also go against the common prisoners. My denouncements are based on lack of medical attention in the prisons, the lack of drinkable water, the approval of the functionaries to allow prisons to become real concentration camps, and so on, highlighting many cases of self-harm by prisoners.
This time, I did sign the Letter of Warning because, in it, it says what I expressed: that I will not stop informing about the Cuba I am interested in. I signed the letter because it says that, although I do not receive money for what I write, there are organizations and Cubans in "the exiles" that collaborate with me, making it possible for me to upload my articles on www.cruzarlasalambradas.com, and even when I give my reports to Radio Marti and/or Radio Republica, I do not receive pay for it. And the moral obligation to prepare myself each day to at least be minimally at the level of the studious commentators and renowned academics who honor me, and offer me a space which my own country refuses me as a simple citizen.
The reports which I provide every semester to the Partial Report of the Human Rights Secretariat of the Eastern Democratic Alliance are directly proven and confirmed by me, and I am responsible for them, both for the form in which I obtain the information and by the primary sources in which I base myself on to make them public. Although it may sound like a declaration of principles, it is more about being the voice for my brothers out on the street and in the prisons who risk themselves on a daily basis so that the world and Cuba know just how much individual and basic rights are being violated, and with how much impunity.
The same Letter of Warning constitutes a flagrant violation of citizen rights, so much so that no one is obliged to support it with their mouth closed, their hands tied back, and the fear eating them up inside.
On Tuesday, April 24th, I provided a lengthy interview to Amnesty International, in which I describe the vicissitudes of being an independent communicator, the violation of the phone lines which make ETECSA and the G2 the owners of our phones, along with the record of my latest detentions and the attacks which I have suffered at the hands of the political police during the past few months. And perhaps that was the real motivation behind this latest arrest, I dare to say. Even so, on Wednesday May 2nd, the interview with Amnesty will go public. There, you'll be able to read more of what I said in the Pedernales Unit.
Translated by Raul G.
30 April 2012
Not Twelve, Seventeen / Miguel Iturria Savón
Not Twelve, Seventeen / Miguel Iturria SavónMiguel Iturria Savón, Translator: Unstated
Since the release of latest political prisoners from the repressive crackdown known as the Black Spring of 2003, foreign correspondents in Cuba cling to a mythical number twelve, referring to those who refused exile and stayed on the island, which is a half truth.
There were 52 remaining of the 75 convicted under the Gag Law, when the regime decided to open the gates to launder its image abroad after the death of striker Orlando Zapata Tamayo and physical deterioration of another striker, independent journalist Guillermo Fariñas Hernández, icons of civic resistance.
Of the 53 who left earlier, almost all under the euphemism of parole, remaining on the island from 2004 to 2006 were the independent journalists Jorge Olivera Castillo and Oscar Espinosa Chepe, Assemblywoman Martha B. Roque Cabello, the liberal politician Hector Palacios Ruiz and Marcelo Lopez Bañobre.
Among those who marched from the prison to exile in this period are the poets Raúl Rivero and Manuel Vazquez Portal. In 2010 there were 12 who said no to banishment, 12 of 52 prisoners who waited in prison despite the pressure of the regime, the mediating efforts of the Archbishop of Havana and the facilities offered by the Spanish government which was acting as a screen for the Castros before the European Community.
Among the twelve who chose to live at home instead of seeking freedom under another flag are Feliz Navarro, Iván Hernández Carrillo, Arnaldo Ramos Lauzurique, Oscar Elías Bicet, Eduardo Díaz Freitas, Librado Linares, José D. Ferrer García, Guido Sigler Amaya, whose brother is being medically treated in the United States; Diosdado González Marrero, Pedro Arguelles Morán, Héctor Maceda Gutiérrez and Ángel Moya Acosta.
The admiration unleashed by these twelve heroes of civic resistance is a continuation of the position taken by the five former prisoners released for health reasons between 2004 and 2006. All remain on the island under control of the political police.
Everyone deserves respect and affection as the rest of the 58 who went abroad by choice, family pressure or state pressure. In the Kabbalah and in historical mythology, twelve is a mythical number. Twelve were the original tribes of Israel, the Promised Land of antiquity. Twelve apostles accompanied Jesus at the Last Supper.
Twelve independence fighters remained alive with the Father of the Nation, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, after the attack on the village of Yara, on October 10, 1868. And twelve expedition members met with Fidel Castro in a hamlet in the Sierra Maestra after the failed landing of the Granma yacht on December 2, 1956.
So twelve is all very well, but please, no more manipulation. There are not twelve but seventeen prisoners released from the Black Spring who remain in Cuba. There are also other fighters in prisons, and in the streets who are serving or served sentences for demanding the freedoms kidnapped by the "liberators of the Fatherland."
August 22 2011
Strange "Estrangement" of the Foreign Press in Cuba / Miriam Celaya
Strange "Estrangement" of the Foreign Press in Cuba / Miriam CelayaMiriam Celaya, Translator: Norma Whiting
An article by a foreign news agency recently reported on the Internet, "Cuban Dissidents at a Crossroads"by Paul Haven and Andrea Rodríguez of the Associated Press, suffers from, at least, two of the most common and serious limitations of accredited journalism in Cuba: contempt for the nationals of this Island and an almost total disregard for the history and idiosyncrasies of the country about which they aim to "inform".
Without a doubt, politically-connected jobs and those who hold those jobs enjoy fertile ground in certain press agencies, which explains how Cuba has become a haven for some who, without much effort and without risk of getting a mild slap on the wrist when they get too close to tolerance limits set by the authorities, rush to "analyze" a stage that they have barely glimpsed. It seems that, to be a reporter for "the Cuban reality," all a foreign journalist needs is a good camera, a bag with a corresponding water bottle, a couple of pairs of shorts and some cotton shirts to better withstand the heat, a dirty pair of sandals for smudging their heels while walking on the smelly and dusty streets of our battered Havana — because, in addition, they don't usually venture out to explore the deep and provincial Cuba, the one that suffers even more than this oblivion capital — and, finally, to report to their agencies, through Internet connections. I imagine that Cuban journalistic assignments must be comparable to winning the lottery for such press professionals. After all, they will always have an opportunity to later publish a quite different Cuban reality to the one they reported while on assignment here, thus they can reap additional financial benefits while cleaning up their journalistic dignity with this exercise of retroactive ethics.
Only thus could the following statement be explained: "When 'Ladies in White' were established as a protest for the imprisonment of activists and journalists in Cuba in 2003, the mission of this group of women was simple: to attain freedom for their loved ones". And the subtlety lies is in the details and the way in which ideas are placed, because the mission of the Ladies in the beginning was, indeed, the release of their relatives, but because it is a struggle waged almost single-handedly and in a dictatorship, such a task could not be as "simple" as all that. In fact, the evolution of seven years' experience led to a deepening in the awareness of that civic movement and expanded its horizons, raising the levels of its demands.
Another trendy suggestion points to the march of the Ladies in White as a kind of Sunday entertainment, since they move "in a quiet suburb of Havana", as if they levitate over the city without going through Centro Habana neighborhoods or others in the capital or in the provinces, which may not be as mild as the patrician Miramar neighborhoods. In such marches, they are not attacked by ordinary people, but it is a rare occasion when they are not harassed by the pack of hounds recruited by the political police ("pro-official" groups, the referenced journalists call them, instead of defining them as what they are: government employees). In fact, the attacks against the Ladies are taking place more and more often, and the violence of the henchmen's harassment is becoming more pronounced.
Another element that the Ladies in White and their cause base their rationale on is the persistence of the well-known "gag law" that put 75 independent journalists and many other dissidents behind bars. The mere existence of this provision in the country's legal body legitimizes repression, abolishes freedom of expression, and allows for possible future arrests for the same or similar causes, that is, expressing ideas not in line or contrary to the stipulations of the regime. The coherence of the Ladies in White lies precisely in understanding that fixing the effect is not enough, but eliminating the causes that precipitate it is essential in order to prevent its recurrence.
Some other inaccuracies, if we must call them that, emerge in the oblique analysis of reference, as inferred from a sentence as naive as it is harmful, considering the release of prisoners a fact that "left the Ladies in White without a cause" and placed "the dissident community" at "a crossroads and challenged with redefining itself and gaining the support of a society that has never seemed particularly receptive or even aware of its message". It would seem that these blundering journalists overlook the fact that this society's only source of information about dissidents and opposition proposals is what's offered by the media, an absolute state monopoly dedicated to systematically demonizing and slandering any alternative proposal, that the government employs all available resources — in particular the repressive forces — to maintain a fence that prevents communication between the dissidents and society, and that civil society which was just beginning to gain strength in the Republic was demolished starting in the early years of the 1959 revolution, and five decades of mute terror has sown in ordinary Cubans either silence or the sham of phony loyalty to the government as elemental survival strategies.
In fact, the "informal poll" conducted by the AP on 30 Cubans "consulted at random", resulting in five (16.6%) being able to identify Laura Pollan, nine (30%) Guillermo Fariñas, three (10%) the blogger Yoani Sánchez could, in fact, be considered an achievement. These results are quite flattering for the dissidence, taking into account conditions in Cuba. Just two years ago, the corollaries of such a survey would have yielded much lower figures, virtually nil.
Cuban dissidence is truly small and fragmented, as befits a country in which, conversely, the dictatorship is huge and monolithic. But again, the mistake of making woeful comparisons is made, because civic resistance here is not comparable in any way, nor does it have any intention to "emulate" the upheavals that took place in the Arab world. Comparing Cuban social reality, not just with the Arab world, but irrationally — for its addition — with those of countries like Great Britain, Spain or Greece, can only be classified as a childish fantasy or a perversion. The aberration is further strengthened when seasoned journalists dab the olive-green autocracy with rosewater.
"And though political freedom may be lacking in a country that was ruled by one or another of the Castro brothers for over 50 years, the government left the (dissident) movement partially without argument when it allowed for greater economic opportunities in recent months, and when it promised more reforms soon". (Parenthesis added by this author). Viewed in this way, the growing discontent, the many expressions of protest, and the demands for rights that are taking place across the Island in increasing waves, and despite beatings, rallies and arrests suffered by protesters, would seem the mere nonsense of occasional rioters and that this country should have enough with a handful of kiosk-type, pint-sized reforms.
What these foreign reporters don't explain how to justify that the resistance has been gaining strength precisely in recent months, when we Cubans have "greater economic opportunities" thanks to the called-for and misnamed "reforms" of General R. Castro, which, rather than transforming the country's socioeconomic plight, have become the latest government defense parapet against public opinion, and a kind of safety valve, despite their shortcomings, in the presence of raising pressure in Cuba and the irreversibility of the general crisis, barely a precarious rein to brake the inevitable end of "the model".
And here is more evidence of a trick of the subconscious of those who, without knowing us, often look at us with condescension and qualify us disdainfully, because, while European grumblers are known as "outraged" and can afford the luxury of marching in the thousands, despite all the imperfections of democracy, they have the rights that even foreign journalists don't question, and the opportunity to elect who their leaders will be; there isn't much for us, the Cuban outraged, to do. But, in perspective and adapting each situation, the Cuban dissident movement would be comparable and even superior to the protests that are taking place in the free world, for theirs is a universe that has access to information and social networks, with unions, civic organizations, rights and freedoms, all the choices that are denied to us.
It is true that the "traditional" Cuban opposition has lacked in consistency, sound strategies and connection to society as a whole. The root of the evil lies in, among many other causes, civic orphanhood of a nation that was never known for being responsible and where politics is always a subject "for others" to see to. But, at their inception, European transitions have never been characterized by having brandished great political plans that hailed multitudes, or by the abundance of leaders who were of great importance or of large-scale social impact, and none of this ever deterred the changes that took place.
Obviously, some observers hope in vain for an impossible miracle to happen in Cuba, while certain accredited journalists seem to be expecting that nothing really takes place that would threaten the tropical affair of a journalism that is bland, irresponsible and without ethical commitments.
Translated by Norma Whiting
September 30 2011
Cuba: The Gag Law / Laritza Diversent
Cuba: The Gag Law / Laritza DiversentLaritza Diversent, Translator: Unstated
In the first of the two annual sessions of the National Assembly, held in the final days of last July, the International Relations committee agreed to instruct its counterpart on Constitutional and Legal Matters, an aggravation of the measures contained in the No. 88.
The Gag Law, as this statutory provision is known internationally, was enacted by the National Assembly on February 16, 1999, in order to protect the independence and economy of Cuba.
The crimes under this law, sanctioned acts which, according to the Cuban government, are aimed at supporting the objectives of the "Helms-Burton" Law and the economic blockade, disrupting internal order and liquidating the socialist state.
Generally it is considered a crime to collaborate in any way with radio or television, newspapers, magazines or other foreign media if not serving as a foreign reporter accredited to the island.
It is also considered a violation to accumulate, reproduce, disseminate materials considered subversive by the Cuban government or to bring them into the island from the United States or to provide any kind of information to private or public entities in this country.
Also sanctioned is promoting, organizing, inciting or disturbing public order or the execution of these events, receiving or distributing financing, material or otherwise, from the northern country, or a third State that collaborates with it.
In 9 of its 12 articles, a criminal offense is identified with penalties of imprisonment from 2 to 15 years and/or a fine of 3 thousand to 250 thousand pesos. The penalty may increase to up to 20 years imprisonment, if the events involve two or more persons, or is performed for remuneration or any benefit or using illegal means.The penalty also increases if there the events relate to the economic relations of the Cuban state, or national or foreign entities, both state and private, or to the U.S. Government, taking action against these or against any of the communist leaders or their relatives.
September 5 2011
Cuba, the Same Ration of Hate / Luis Felipe Rojas
Cuba, the Same Ration of Hate / Luis Felipe RojasLuis Felipe Rojas, Translator: Raul G.
This article was written by Luis Felipe Rojas and published on the digital newspaper, Cubaencuentro.
Little time has passed since the conclusion of the VI Cuban Communist Party Congress, and now very few have faith in those promises. In the spectrum known as Social Political, the government does nothing to truly set these reforms in motion.
The general-president, Raul Castro, has made reference to the prohibition of entering and exiting the country as "prohibitions and regulations issued during another moment of the revolutionary process", to mask that judicial monstrosity that is the exit (or entrance) permit of the country. However, nothing is said about the prohibition of traveling freely within the national territory.
What does the local press say about the new flourishing police check points, which were eliminated from the site of human rights inspectors which visited the island during the end of the 80′s? Nothing. If anything, a random local newspaper will refer to them but as "revolutionary measures" taken to impede the growth of the black market.
On innumerable occasions Cuban dissidents have denounced the prohibitions of entering or exiting their own provinces. Jorge Luis Garcia Perez (Antunez) has a police vehicle permanently stationed at the corner of his block in the central municipality of Placetas, Villa Clara. In the police control check point of Rio Frio, at the entrance of Guantanamo, there is a list with names, photos, and political references of nearly a hundred political dissidents in order to keep them from coming in, or getting out, of the city. According to Rolando Rodriguez Lobaina, member of the illegal Eastern Democratic Alliance, the list is activated or dis-activated depending on specific orders from the political police on significant dates or days in which it is presumed that there will be popular protests.
The beatings carried out against various female dissidents (coming from Moa, Holguin, and Palma Soriano) in Santiago de Cuba during the past month, with the objective of keeping them from assisting mass being held in Catholic churches like the Sanctuary of El Cobre or the Cathedral of the province, proves that the government is the one that drowns its own citizens in a sea of illegality.
Which judicial tools does the National Revolutionary Police hide behind in order to surround the homes of dissidents, blocking off entrances, in order to prevent them from participating in commemorative acts convoked by themselves, but patriotic nonetheless?
One would have to search through Law 88 (or the Gag Law) to try to find out what it is about placing flowers under a statue of Jose Marti, or carrying out a public event in a park, or a meeting in one's own living room, that constitutes an attempt against national security.
In regards to the promises of reforming the socialist legislation in terms of migratory issues, the general-president cheers on his supporters and gives them the right to defend the 50 year long project.
"This street belongs to Fidel", or its derivatives like "the streets and universities are for revolutionaries" catalyze hate amongst Cubans. The consequences can be verified in acts as shameful as the mob repudiation attacks, the public beatings carried out by supporters, or the bombardment of eggs, excrement, and paint against the homes of dissidents.
At the beginning of this year, photos were published on the internet of the home of Sara Marta Fonseca, a non-violent dissident who lives in the Havana neighborhood of Rio Verde. Members of the Rapid Response Brigade smeared the facade of the house, the front porch, and the side hallway with tar. When all of this mockery was made public, and when accredited journalists residing in Havana as well as tourists occasionally passed by the house at night to take some photos as if they were trophies, officials from the sinister Department 21 (G2) offered Sara Marta the chance to set up a brigade which would paint the house for her, a proposition which, according to sources from the internal opposition, she declined.
The future effectiveness of Cuban legality will first have to universalize the right of all citizens and rip away all the hate injected into each citizen. Sooner or later, we will have to dismantle that machine which just hurls insults, kicks, and spit.
Translated by Raul G.
16 August 2011
Authorities Step Up Harassment Of Independent News Centre – RSF
Cuba: Authorities Step Up Harassment Of Independent News CentreWritten by: Reporters Without BordersJuly 2, 2011Bookmark and Share
The Cuban authorities are waging a campaign to intimidate Hablemos Press, a Havana-based independent news centre, presumably because of its criticism of the government. In the past three months, 14 of its correspondents have been threatened and 10 have been briefly detained on at least one occasion.
According to Hablemos Press director Roberto Jesús Guerra Pérez, the situation began to deteriorate during the 6th Congress of the Cuban Communist party in April, when new economic and social measures were announced. Security agents banned journalists from leaving home throughout the congress, Guerra said.
The hounding of Hablemos Press is typical of the plight of independent journalists in Cuba, where civil liberties are universally flouted. A new crackdown has been launched on anyone trying to express dissident views. Journalists are being subject to repeated arrests and brief spells in detention with the aim of reducing them to silence.
"The measures announced during the 6th Congress must be accompanied by an opening-up on human rights and democracy issues," Reporters Without Borders said. "We call for the legalization of independent media that are not controlled by the state, an end to the criminalization of dissident views, access for all Cubans to an unfiltered Internet and the repeal of all laws that restrict media freedom. The government must also honour its international obligations by ratifying the two UN conventions on civil and political rights that it signed in 2008."
"This is a psychological war," Guerra said, referring to the harassment of journalists. "They are trying to silence us by means of death threats, incitement to leave the country with our families, and repeated detention and interrogation, often lasting more than four hours at a stretch."
According to a report that Guerra provided to Reporters Without Borders, the legal basis on which many independent journalists have been arrested and detained is a provision of Law 88 on the Protection of National Independence and the Cuban Economy, also known as the "gag law." Under this provision, anyone who is deemed to have caused serious harm to the economy by cooperating with foreign media can be sentenced to two to eight years in prison. Many journalists were arrested under the same provision during the "Black Spring" of 2003.
Calixto Ramos Martínez Arias, who has been a Hablemos Press correspondent since 2009, was arrested twice in May. The second time he was arrested, on 16 May, he spent 75 hours in police custody on the orders of a state security official, although no grounds were given. After destroying his ID card, the state security official said he would shoot Martínez in the head the next time he saw him in the police station. Martínez was repeatedly deported from Havana to Camaguey in 2010 because of his journalistic work.
Jorge Alberto Liriano Linares, the Hablemos Press correspondent in Camagüey, was physically attacked by state security agents while covering a demonstration organized by the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Human Rights Union in 3 June, suffering bruising to the ribs and cuts to the face and body. He was then held for eight hour in a state security unit, where he received no medical treatment. He says he was subjected to "psychological torture and systematic mistreatment."
Carlos Ríos Otero and Sandra Guerra have been threatened by both state security agents and members of the national police in Havana. Ríos has been arrested twice. Guerra was detained for more than 48 hours in her home by a total of 20 agents. Stones were thrown at the home of Jaime Leygonier Fernández after he wrote an article that was very critical of the government.
Yoandris Gutiérrez Vargas, Enyor Díaz Allen and Raul Alas Márquez have all been detained twice. Gutiérrez was arrested on 17 and 22 June while covering dissident Jorge Cervantes' hunger strike in Santiago de Cuba. Díaz was arrested in Guantánamo, where he was also physically attacked by government supporters during the 6th Congress. Alas was arrested in Cielo de Avila.
Magaly Norvis Otero Suárez, a journalist who works for both Hablemos Press and Miami-based Radio Martí, was insulted on 7 June, She also keeps a blog in which she reports arbitrary arrests and other human rights abuses.
Four prisoners – Alexander Suárez Torres, Carlos Amir Cárdenas Cartava, Jorge Félix Otero Morales and Ramón Arias Acosta – suffered a deterioration in prison conditions after providing Hablemos Press with information. Suárez and Cárdenas were transferred from Havana to prisons in Camagüey. Otero and Arias were confined to punishment cells.
Finally, the dissident cyber-journalist Guillermo Fariñas, winner of the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2010, was detained yet again on 27 May and was held for 12 hours at the provincial police operations headquarters along with 11 other dissidents.
The Cuban people are still denied the right to receive and impart information and several journalists have been forced to leave the country. On World Refugee Day on 20 June, Reporters Without Borders paid tribute to those journalists who, after being forced to flee their country, continue to work as journalists and thereby defy those who tried to silence them.
In this report, entitled "Forced to flee but not silenced – exile media fight on," Reporters Without Borders interviewed refugee journalists from all parts of the world, including Cuba, with the aim of helping to make their voices heard.About the author:
Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders defends journalists and media assistants imprisoned or persecuted for doing their job and exposes the mistreatment and torture of them in many countries.
Political Decisions Above Cuban Laws / Laritza Diversent
Political Decisions Above Cuban Laws / Laritza DiversentLaritza Diversent, Translator: Raul G.
The American contractor, Alan Gross, was sentenced this past March 4th in Havana for carrying out acts which uphold the interests of a foreign State with the "objective of damaging Cuban state independence or territorial integrity", according article 91 of the Penal Code.
The choice of the precept made it clear what the Cuban authorities were seeking, as they tried to apply one of the most imprecise and severe aspects of their legislation. However, Law 88/99 in regards to "The Protection of Cuban Independence and Economics" is less ample, and the penal infraction regulated by its Article 11 is related more to the case in question.
The precept establishes sentences of 3 to 8 years in prison, including a sanction of a fine of one thousand to 15 thousand pesos to anyone who directly distributes financial, material, or any other kind of means that come from the United States or any of its private entities.
In December 2009, Gross was detained without any charges for trying to bring satellite equipment to the Jewish community on the island. Fourteen months later, the public prosecutor asked for a 20 year prison sentence to Gross for actions against the territorial independence or integrity of the Cuban state.
The Public Minister took the opportunity to apply Law 88/1999, popularly known as the Gag Law, which is more benign and less ambiguous. The tribunal also returned the proceedings for an incorrect legal classification.
However, when the judicial process should be the same throughout the entire island, the interpretation and application of the law is anything but uniform. During the Spring of 2003, the Cuban courts condemned 75 dissidents to very long jail sentences. Only because the precept the Penal Code allowed it, and at least 43 of them were sentenced under it. They used the Gag Law on the rest of them.
In the case of the 75, the prosecutors office solicited the application of Article 91 of the Penal Code in the Provincial Tribunal of Las Tunas against one of the sentenced dissidents. In the sentence declared on 8/2003, the organ of justice rejected the prosecutor's petition due to the special characteristics of Law 88/1999 which states in its text that it can be preferentially applied towards any other penal legislation which precedes it.
However, the Provincial Tribunal of Santiago de Cuba, in its 7/2003 sentence, rejected a legal mandate and the thesis of the defense to sentence according to the crimes of the Gag Law; because "the accused were seeking to undermine the sovereignty, to enslave the nation, and to annex Cuba to the United States of America".
The fact that Alan Gross is a United States citizen worsened his situation before the Cuban authorities, due to all the differences which have existed for more than half a century between Cuba and the United States. The subordination of revolutionary justice to the mandates of the communist government also conspired against him.
The decision to sentence him and apply the most severe rule to him was the result of political reasons which, in the island, are above the law. As long as the State Council has the constitutional duty to impart instructions to the Prosecutor's Office and the tribunals, it will continue working that way.
Translated by Raul G.
April 6 2011
Cuban dissident Oscar Biscet is released after 8 years in prison
Posted on Friday, 03.11.11
Cuban dissident Oscar Biscet is released after 8 years in prison
Cuba's best-known dissident says he'll continue to fight the government after eight years in prison.BY JUAN O. TAMAYOjtamayo@elnuevoherald.com
Cuba's government Friday freed Oscar Elias Biscet, a leading dissident who served more than 11 years in prison and was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom for his steadfast advocacy of peaceful opposition to the communist system.
"I am not going to say that I will continue in the opposition, because in jail I never stopped fighting against this government and the abuses it commits," Biscet told the AFP news agency in Havana.
The 49-year-old black doctor was serving a 25-year prison sentence for "acts against the sovereignty and independence of the national territory" under the notorious Law 88 of 1999, also known as the Gag Law.
Biscet founded the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights and Democracy, and has been active in a Christian-based campaign that opposes Cuba's use of the drug Rivanol for late-term abortions.
His steadfast criticism of the Cuban government, calls for peaceful civil isobedience and quiet manner have won him praise in and out of Cuba, as well as the 2007 Medal of Freedom awarded by President George W. Bush.
Biscet told the AFP that three state security agents had delivered him to his home in the Lawton neighborhood of Havana and to his wife, Elsa Morejón. Calls to his home telephone number rang busy for hours Friday night.
Biscet's imminent freedom was announced Thursday by the office of Cardenal Jaime Ortega, Catholic archbishop of Havana, as part of a broad release of political prisoners that he announced last July 7 after a meeting with Cuban ruler Raúl Castro.
Ortega announced that Castro had agreed to free the last 52 dissidents still in prison from a harsh crackdown in 2003 that sentenced 75 dissidents, including Biscet, to prison terms of up to 28 years after a string of one-day or less trials.
Forty were released by the Nov. 7 deadline after they agreed to go directly from prison to exile in Spain. But Biscet and 11 others refused to leave the country and were kept in prison beyond the deadline. Only three remained in prison as of Friday.
Cuba also has released another 50 or so other prisoners who were included in lists of ''political prisoners'' because they were convicted of "counterrevolutionary'' crimes, but were accused of violent acts such as hijacking boats or airplanes.
Biscet was arrested 27 times between February 1998 and November 1999 — usually for short periods but sometimes in punishment cells — for his early opposition activities, according to Morejón's count.
He was sentenced to three years in prison in 1999 on charges of public disorder for staging a peaceful march through Havana days before an IberoAmerican summit of heads of state and government from Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries.
Biscet served the full three years in a high-security prison in the eastern city of Holguín — where Morejón faced harsh transportation difficulties to visit him — and was released in November 2002.
Just 37 days later, he was arrested again and was tried in April with the 74 other dissidents rounded up during Cuba's so-called "Black Spring." Also convicted in his half-day trial were Angel Moya, (20 years), Orlando Fundora (18) and Miguel Valdés (15).
After the trial, Morejón told reporters that Biscet's "only crime is to honor the Universal Declaration for Human Rights in his own country."
The sentences handed down to the 75 dissidents totaled 1,454 years.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/11/2111044/cuban-dissident-oscar-biscet-is.html
What Cuba’s dissidents want
What Cuba's dissidents want27/07 20:16 CETHuman Rights
On July 13, seven freed Cuban dissidents arrived at Madrid airport in Spain. They were part of a group of 75 people who were given long prison sentences in a crackdown in early 2003. Their release followed negotiations between the Cuban Catholic church and Raúl Castro.
The Cuban president had promised the Spanish government that 52 of the 75 would be freed.
Madrid has urged the EU to reward Havana with diplomatic and economic concessions in return for an improvement in human rights.
On arriving in Spain, released dissident Julio César Gálvez Rodríguez said: "We are the first of a group of prisoners of conscience who have just landed on Spanish soil, after more than seven years of being unfairly jailed and in captivity."
But the release of the political prisoners is not the Cuban dissidents' only demand.
Opponents of the regime also want much wider democratic reforms. They include: a free press and freedom of expression; the disbanding of the so called political police – Section 21 of the State Security force – and the repeal of the so-called 'gag law' – Law 88 – under which Cubans can be jailed for up to 20 years for providing information to the US.
The opposition also wants more freedom to travel outside Cuba, to set up their own businesses to own private property and use the internet and watch non-state television.
20 journalists in prison since March 2003
20 journalists in prison since March 2003
In Cuba, they don’t just censor you now – they throw you in jail.
President Fidel Castro’s police rounded up 27 independent journalists on 18 March 2003, along with more than 50 political dissidents, all for the same reason. At the beginning of April, Cuban courts dispatched each of these journalists to prison for between 14 and 27 years after three days of sham trials. They were punished for allegedly working with the United States “against the independence and territorial integrity of the state,” which is a crime under article 91 of the Cuban criminal code and under article 88 on “protecting national independence” (known as the “gag law”).
Those targeted had regularly published articles in the foreign press, mostly American, since no independent or privately-owned newspaper or radio or TV station is allowed in Cuba, and had recently dared to start up two underground publications in Cuba itself – “De Cuba” and “Luz Cubana” – which was unprecedented in the 44 years of President Castro’s rule.
This new persecution of political opponents and independent journalists, as well as the execution on 11 April of three would-be refugees who hijacked a ferry in a bid to reach Florida, has revolted democrats around the world, even leading the European Union to reconsider its future economic cooperation with Cuba. As a result, fourteen of the dissidents, including seven journalists, have since been released.
Reporters Without Borders invites the public to sign a petition calling for the immediate release of the 20 journalists who are still in jail.
http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=367
CUBAN DENTIST, A PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE IN CUBA, GRAVELY ILL,CLAIMS HE PREFERS TO DIE RATHER THAN RENOUNCE HIS IDEALS
CUBAN DENTIST, A PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE IN CUBA, GRAVELY ILLCLAIMS HE PREFERS TO DIE RATHER THAN RENOUNCE HIS IDEALS
CamagueyTestimony of Rebeca Rodriguez SautoTaped, transcribed, and translated into EnglishCoalition of Cuban-American WomenLaida Carro / Tanya WilderLa Nueva CubaApril 25, 2006
On April 18, 2006, Rebeca Rodriguez Sauto went to Kilo 7 Prison in the province of Camaguey for a family visit, which is permitted every 45 days, with her husband, Dr. Alfredo Pulido Lopez, and found that his health has significantly worsened.
Dr. Pulido, a prisoner of conscience, continues to lose weight, according to Rebeca. He is now at least 20 pounds under what he weighed when he was incarcerated in 2003. She had never seen her husband so depressed and psychologically distraught. According to the Cuban dentist’s testimony, his condition is related to the fact that ‘the situation in prison is very serious because there is a lot of aggression among the prisoners,’ and he pointed out that a few days beforehand, one prisoner had killed another. ‘We are constantly under inspection. They call those of us that are political prisoners ‘counter-revolutionaries’ and treat us like common criminals.’
Chronic bronchitis and a lack of air also affect Dr. Pulido’s health, and recently, dark bruises of an unknown origin have appeared on his skin.
The prisoner of conscience told his wife that because of the serious illnesses from which he suffers, the authorities should have granted him a medical parole some time ago, and he added that they will not grant him release “because my convictions are firm, and I make them quite clear.” Dr. Pulido stated that he has no real reason to ask for a medical parole since he is an innocent man to begin with and what the Cuban authorities really have to give him is FREEDOM. He continued telling his wife, ‘I am more firm in my convictions every day. I am not going to renounce them. They (the prison authorities) know that my health is affected. They can do what they want.’
Rebeca Rodriguez Sauto stated that her husband told her the reason he believed that in 2003 the authorities in Cuba tried and incarcerated him along with 74 other Cuban citizens who peacefully expressed their independent ideas on the island: “the objective is to eliminate us physically.”
Dr. Pulido, 46, practiced dentistry for 22 years until 1998 when he was expelled from his clinic for linking himself to the dissident movement through the Christian Liberation Movement. In 2001, he began to work as an independent journalist in Camagüey, and he is a Master Mason as well. He was detained on March 18, 2003, and sentenced in a summary trial to 14 years in prison under Article 91 of the Cuban penal code and Law 88, also known as the Gag Law. He is confined to a barrack with 100 common prisoners, many of whom are condemned for murder, in Kilo 7 Prison in Camagüey.
We make an urgent request to dignitaries of democratic nations, to human rights organizations, to religious, civic, and political leaders, to the international press, and to men and women of good faith in the world to demand that the Cuban government grant unconditional freedom and immediate release to Dr. Alfredo Pulido Lopez and all those in Cuba imprisoned for exercising fundamental freedoms.
Testimony of Rebeca Rodriguez Sauto given by telephone from Cuba. Taped, transcribed, and translated into English.Coalition of Cuban-American Women / LAIDA CARRO / TANYA WILDER
E-mails: Joseito76@aol.com / tswilder@charter.net
Rebeca Rodriguez Sauto: Address: Palomino #445 entre Linea y Primera, Reparto La Mascota, Camaguey, Cuba. Tel: + 53-32-25391
http://www.lanuevacuba.com/nuevacuba/notic-06-04-2570.htm
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