10 Cuban dissidents at US Guantanamo base: blogger
10 Cuban dissidents at US Guantanamo base: blogger(AFP)
HAVANA — Ten Cuban dissidents are seeking asylum at the US naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba, but "are being treated like terrorists," a blogger close to the Cuban government charged Monday.
The 10 including dissident journalists Olienny Valladares Capote and Adolfo Pablo Borraza Chaple, have been at the US base on Cuba's southeastern tip, for three months and started a hunger strike February 3, blogger Yohandry wrote.
The blogger did not say how the group arrived at the tightly secured US base, which Cuba says the United States operates on its territory against its will. The United States claims it has a valid lease.
"Both journalists have said that at the Guantanamo Bay naval base refugees are treated like terrorists," the blogger added, alluding to the US holding terror suspects there.
Referring to their reported hunger strike, Yohandry said it was not clear if US authorities were force-feeding the group "as Americans usually do in such cases."
After the 1959 revolution that brought ex-president Fidel Castro to power in Havana many Cubans tried to make it to the base, which is surrounded by mine fields, in a bid to emigrate to the United States.
Cuba — the Americas' only one-party Communist regime — does not have full diplomatic relations with the United States.
Wilman Villar Mendoza: The Death of a Dissident / Yoani Sánchez
Wilman Villar Mendoza: The Death of a Dissident / Yoani SánchezTranslator: Unstated, Yoani Sánchez
The punishment cell is narrow, is five feet wide by two long, cold and there is not even a blanket for cover. From the hole in the floor that serves as a toilet, a rat occasionally emerges and looks curiously at the curled up man lying there. Outside shouts are heard, metal banging, and the general noise of the Aguadores prison, one of the most feared in eastern Cuba. This scene, common in our prison system, was repeated in early January and was had as its protagonist a young man of 31.
He was called Wilman Villar Mendoza was arrested on November 14, 2011 while participating in an antigovernment protest in the streets of Contramaestre, his hometown. In images broadcast after his death, he is seen at the head of a group carrying the Cuban flag, while the astonished passers-by do not know whether to join the crowd or to shout down the demonstrators. Probably the memories of that place passed through his head again and again while he shivered within the damp walls of the dungeon, but that we can never confirm. Because of that place he would only emerge — already dying — to the hospital and finally to a grave in the cemetery.
Villar Mendoza, the prisoner who recently died of a hunger strike, made a living doing carpentry and masonry work. His specialty was the most slender and beautiful wooden flowers that tourists buy as souvenirs to remember this island. A stalk and six petals carved with the patience of one who knows that time is not worth much in Cuba, the minutes will not bring him anything more successful or happier. He gave form to a piece of cedar, shaping it for hours and hours, brooding with that frustration that is always greater among the youth of the province.
In September 2011 this sense of social unrest led him to join the opposition group Patriotic Union of Cuba. According to the official propaganda je was a common criminal who had even "brutally" beaten his wife in July last year. But too many witnesses, including his own wife, suggests that such insults are only trying to kill his image after the death of his body.
In Cuba, in the words of a friend, "nobody knows the past that awaits you," because criminal records of citizens are also determined by their political behavior. As there is no separation of powers, as the judicial system is not independent of the party branch, those whose ideology falls short will find it reflected in their criminal records.
Generals have been known to have shoot their mistresses, ministers caught in million dollar embezzlement schemes, children and their fathers involved in various crimes that have never been brought before a court. But when it comes to an opponent of the regime, it is enough to have bought milk on the black market, quarreled with your wife, or parked your car badly, to be taken as a culprit.
The Criminal Code does not include any section for "political offense," so that the "inconvenient" are always charged under another section. Which is what happened to Wilman Villar Mendoza, who resisted police arrest on July 7, 2011 after a domestic incident. Purely by "coincidence" he would only be prosecuted for this case four months later, when he participated in a protest against the government. On arresting him, an officer shouted in front of several witnesses: "now we'll make you disappear," and they did.
The practice of turning activists into criminals is nothing new. In February 2010, when Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after 85 days without food, Raul Castro said publicly that he was a common criminal. He had forgotten that seven years earlier in the book The Dissenters, prepared by pro-government journalists to justify the imprisonments of the Black Spring, Zapata Tamayo appeared with photo, name and surname. Playing with history and rearranging it tends to create these contradictions … since no government has ever been able to predict "what the future holds."
Fortunately, a criminal record can not explain all of the attitudes that a man comes to take in his life. To present Villar Mendoza only as a choleric husband who beat his wife does not explain why he was left to die without food. To accuse him as a common prisoner seeks to reinforce the Manichean idea as that in Cuba there are no decent people, patriotic and law-abiding, who are also opposed to the government. Hence the flood of insults that have rained on the memory of the deceased and the official interest used his civic activism as a way to "clean up" some criminal past.
A recent editorial in Granma asserts that there was no hunger strike. It does not explain, however, how someone only 31 years old deteriorated so rapidly in two months of confinement to the point of dying in a hospital from "multiple organ failure." There is also the testimony of relatives and friends who visited Villar Mendoza in jail to convince him to eat again, but could not get him to stop repeating "Freedom or death!"
To disprove the official version, there are also numerous reports of fasting that appeared in news media in exile and Twitter accounts of local activists since mid-December. The Internet shows what the Cuban press hides.
According to the statement of Maritza Pelegrino, her husband ceased to feed himself on November 24 when he was sentenced to four years imprisonment. He interrupted the strike on December 23 because his jailers made him believe that he would be in the list of prisoners pardoned by General Raul Castro. But he returned to starvation six days later in finding out that all those promises were just lies, dirty tricks.
Tied up and naked they then put him in the punishment cell where he contracted the pneumonia that would kill him. He arrived at the hospital on January 13 and doctors warned the family that only a miracle could save him. Less than a week later he was no longer breathing.
Wilman Villar was killed by the late medical intervention and neglect of those who should have watched over him in prison. A system that has cut off all peaceful, civic and electoral paths for citizens to influence national course killed him. He was turned into a cadaver by a judicial apparatus riddled with irregularities and ideological preferences, where a political opponent is held guilty of any crime with little chance to prove otherwise.
It was not just the lack of food or water that caused the sad outcome of January 19, but having to use one's body as a public square of indignation, on an island where protest is prohibited.
At his death, Wilman Villar Mendoza had two daughters, aged five and seven years. Their mother still does not know how to explain to them what happened.
Originally published in Spanish in El Pais, 31 January 2012
Further information: Prisoners of conscience freed – Amnesty International
Cuba: Further information: Prisoners of conscience freed
Further information on UA: 355/11Index: AMR 25/002/2012Cuba Date: 23 January 2012
URGENT ACTION PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE FREED
Cuban human right activists Ivonne Malleza Galano and Ignacio Martínez Montejo were released from detention on 20 January, along with Isabel Haydee Álvarez, who was detained after calling on officials to release the two activists. They had been held for 52 days without charge, following their participation in a peaceful anti-government demonstration on 30 November 2011. Ivonne Malleza Galano and Isabel Haydee Álvarez were released at 5pm and Ignacio Martínez Montejo at 9pm. On their release they were told by state security officials that they would face "harsh sentences" ("condenas severas") if they continued their dissident activities. Amnesty International had adopted them as prisoners of conscience, as they were detained solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, and had called for their immediate and unconditional release. On 30 November, Ivonne Malleza Galano, a member of the Ladies in Support (Damas de Apoyo) to the Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco), and her husband Ignacio Martínez Montejo, were arrested by police officers while they were staging a peaceful demonstration in Fraternity Park (Parque de la Fraternidad) in Havana City. The protest was against hunger and poverty, and they were holding a banner with the slogan "Stop hunger, misery and poverty in Cuba". Ivonne Malleza Galano was handcuffed and pushed into a police vehicle. Two police officers arrived, tried to confiscate the banner and detained her, along with Ignacio Martínez Montejo. Video footage posted on the internet shows Ivonne Malleza Galano being arrested by the police officers at Fraternity Park while the crowd gathered round her and asked the officers to let her go. Isabel Haydee Álvarez, an onlooker watching the demonstration, was detained after protesting that the authorities should let the couple go. Ivonne Malleza Galano is a member of the Ladies in Support (Damas de Apoyo) to the Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco). The Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco) are a group of female relatives of former prisoners of conscience and current political prisoners. They organize peaceful marches where they distribute flowers and call for the release of those who are still detained. In 2005, the European Parliament awarded The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to the Ladies in White. The Ladies in Support emerged as a solidarity group who support and participate in activities organized by the Ladies in White. Amnesty International will continue to closely monitor their situation and will take further action as appropriate. No further action is required. Many thanks to all who sent appeals. This is the third update of UA 355/11. Further information: www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR25/001/2012/en Names: Ivonne Malleza Galano, Ignacio Martínez Montejo, Isabel Haydee Álvarez Gender m/f: Ivonne Malleza Galano (f), Ignacio Martínez Montejo (m), Isabel Haydee Álvarez (f)
Further information on UA: 355/11 Index: AMR 25/002/2012Issue Date: 23 January 2012
Cuba, Where Sheep Are Trained To Venerate Wolves
Op/Ed – 1/31/2012 @ 11:15AM
Cuba, Where Sheep Are Trained To Venerate Wolves
With the death of Cuban dissident Wilman Villar Mendoza, Cuba has lost one of its precious remaining brave souls. While a sputtering dissident movement shows occasional signs of life, reminding us of the hell the Cuban people endure, it casts a pale shadow compared to the fury of the Arab Spring. How is it possible that the Castro brothers have been able to run one of the world's most repressive and dysfunctional gulags for so long without their meeting the fate of the Ceausescus by now?
Their technique of how to introduce communism on an island scale is worth studying.
First, take a geographic area and build a firewall around it. Allow an elite group of monomaniacal thugs to subject the people trapped inside to five decades of brutal repression, privation, confiscation, and humiliation, all bolstered by relentless propaganda designed to convince victims and observers alike that this is necessary for the greater glory of the revolution.
Second, enlist an army of global intellectuals to manufacture a smokescreen of respectability for a governing philosophy that extols the virtues of equality and sacrifice, despite the fact that it delivers the equality of poverty and the sacrifice of self respect. Build a few Potemkin village medical facilities to fool the gullible into believing some noble purpose or higher achievement motivates the endeavor.
Third, make it is risky, but not impossible, for anyone who possesses the ambition and courage to rebel to escape instead.
Finally, marinate for two generations as you chase off the best and the brightest and observe what happens to the character of the people that survive.
Welcome to Cuba, where the human spirit has been so thoroughly crushed that a nation of sheep passively waits for their predatory wolves to die of old age, safely in their beds, not a hand raised against them.
Given the Cuban people's apparent resignation to their own fate, is it any surprise that the rest of us just shake our heads in wonder and go about our business, our political leaders impotently decrying the occasional human rights outrage that escapes the censors and makes it into the news?
When the nightmare runs its course and the complete story is finally told, there will be no redeeming chapters.
But what about the lower-than-average infant mortality and longer life expectancy touted by the Castro regime's boosters, if such statistics can be believed? Isn't living longer an end that justifies the means? Think about what living longer implies if you're forced to live under tyranny. America's founders—and indeed, the leaders of the Central and South American independence movements—preferred death to that sort of life, and said so with their words and deeds.
What about the famously low crime rate, where a midnight stroller is safer in Havana than in Washington, DC? Yes, violent crime is a government monopoly in a police state. Plus, in a country that has so little, there is nothing much to steal. After all, how many iPhones can get ripped off when nobody can afford one and posting the wrong thing on Twitter can earn you a visit from state security?
It'll be interesting to see what happens to a demoralized people after Castroism breathes its final breath. A new pack of wolves might try to keep the workers' paradise going, but at this point even the most devoted cadres may well be weary of the experiment. Look for them to enrich themselves by "privatizing" the economy Russian oligarch-style, as they carve up the island to remodel it into the Caribbean resort destination it has every right to be—so long as the "right" people profit.
A brief vintage car export market will likely open up as the world's largest living auto museum sells off its collection. Prostitution will return, or more precisely come out of the shadows, perhaps along with the revival of what once was a thriving pornography industry. It's hard to imagine a manufacturing base springing up to take advantage of the cheap labor as this needs to be coupled with a work ethic, something the Castro regime has made every effort to destroy. Surely, some unique comparative advantage will come to the fore. But having tolerated the intolerable for so long, will the Cuban people know what to do with their newfound freedom once liberated from their chains?
That is the experiment that awaits the return of capitalism.
One can imagine a scenario in which an influx of returning expats, rich in both human and financial capital, blow past the locals as they reintroduce the courage, entrepreneurship, and work ethic they took with them when they escaped. A two-tier society could easily emerge, with returnees and their children lording their success over the bewildered and resentful locals. Petty theft likely will make a comeback, so expect a vigorous market for alarm and security services.
Cubans who have managed to get an advanced education under Castro, like the many doctors staffing its medical system, will probably do fine, though many might move to the U.S. seeking better pay, filling our looming doctor shortage. Cigar exports will spike, although once Cuban cigars lose their naughty cachet they will have to compete with many excellent products produced by Cuba's neighbors. And the music industry will thrive once it is coupled with international distribution—some talents just cannot be stamped out.
But what will happen to the rest of the populace? Many might go to work as the cooks, dishwashers, waiters, and hotel maids that will surely be in demand when Club Med comes to town. They'll be much better off than they are now. But don't expect that to stop the mainstream media from running nostalgic stories about the equality that should have, would have, and could have been had Marxism only been implemented properly.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrezza/2012/01/31/cuba-where-sheep-are-trained-to-venerate-wolves/
Cuban authorities ‘responsible’ for activist’s death on hunger strike – Amnesty International
Cuban authorities ‘responsible’ for activist’s death on hunger strike 20 January 2012
“The responsibility for Wilman Villar Mendoza’s death in custody lies squarely with the Cuban authorities, who summarily judged and jailed him for exercising his right to freedom of expression.” Javier Zúñiga, Special Adviser at Amnesty International Fri, 20/01/2012
The death in custody of a Cuban prisoner of conscience after a hunger strike is a shocking reminder of the Raúl Castro government’s intolerance for dissent, Amnesty International said today.
Wilman Villar Mendoza, 31, died this morning in Juan Bruno Zayas Hospital in the city of Santiago where he was transferred from prison on 13 January due to health problems allegedly arising from a hunger strike protesting at his unfair trial and imprisonment.
He was serving a four-year prison term on charges related to his participation in a public demonstration against the government.
“The responsibility for Wilman Villar Mendoza’s death in custody lies squarely with the Cuban authorities, who summarily judged and jailed him for exercising his right to freedom of expression,” said Javier Zúñiga, Special Adviser at Amnesty International.
“His tragic death highlights the depths of despair faced by the other prisoners of conscience still languishing in Cuban jails, who must be released immediately and unconditionally.”
“The Cuban authorities must stop the harassment, persecution, and imprisonment of peaceful demonstrators as well as political and human rights activists.”
On 14 November 2011, police arrested Villar Mendoza and eight other members of the Cuban Patriotic Union dissident group in the eastern town of Contramaestre for taking part in a protest against the Cuban government.
While he was in detention, police intimidated Villar Mendoza, telling him he would be disappeared or face imprisonment on criminal charges stemming from an earlier arrest if he did not stop his protests and leave the dissident group.
He was released after three days in police custody but was then summoned to Contramaestre Municipal Tribunal on 24 November. Judges tried him in private and refused to accept testimony from his wife or other defence witnesses.
The judges sentenced the activist to four years’ imprisonment and immediately transferred him to Aguadores prison, in the provincial capital Santiago. The same day, he began a hunger strike in protest at the ruling.
As Villar Mendoza’s health deteriorated over recent days, members of the Cuban Patriotic Union and the Ladies in White opposition group organised a vigil outside the hospital. On 18 January, state security officials broke up the gathering and detained more than a dozen people.
Wilman Villar Mendoza is not the first prisoner of conscience to die in Cuban custody.
Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a prisoner of conscience jailed after the “Black Spring” crackdown on opposition groups in March 2003, died in prison on 23 February 2010 after several weeks on hunger strike.
Cuban women on a protest march say police harassed and detained them
Posted on Thursday, 02.02.12
Cuban women on a protest march say police harassed and detained them
They say they were trying to stage a march in the central Cuba city of Santa Clara when police searched them for cellphones
By Juan O. Tamayojtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
Cuban dissidents say police beat, groped and detained seven women who tried to stage a march in the central city of Santa Clara to demand the release of an opposition couple jailed since early January.
In an audio recording provided by the dissidents, women were heard screaming and repeatedly shouting "Don't stick your hands on my breasts, murderer" — allegedly as police searched for the cellphones recording the scene.
"He put his hands inside my blouse, then they lifted my blouse in the middle of the street looking for my phone," said Idania Yánes Contreras, who led the march and recorded a narration of the Wednesday confrontation on her phone.
"We were all punched and had our hair pulled" as police carried the women to waiting patrol cars, Yánes added. Police also seized a frying pan the women had been banging on to attract attention.
Six of the women were freed Thursday and the seventh was sent home late Wednesday, Yánes told El Nuevo Herald by telephone from her home in Santa Clara.
Yánes said the seven members of the Rosa Parks Feminist Movement for Civil Rights, all dressed in black as a sign of mourning "for the victims of the dictatorship," launched the protest carrying a sign that said, "For Freedom, Against Impunity."
The march was intended to protest the continued detention of independent journalist Yazmín Conlledo Riverón and her husband, Rafael Álvarez Esmoris, who were arrested Jan. 8 on what Yánes described as fraudulent charges.
The women had gone only about half a block, shouting "Freedom" and "Down with Repression," Yánes said, when uniformed police and State Security agents in civilian clothes swooped down on them and began searching for the phones.
One security official told another, "that person has a cellular there," according to a transcript provided by the dissidents. The actual recording, posted on the blog of Jorge Luis García Pérez, known as Antúnez, is sometimes difficult to understand.
Antúnez, whose wife Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera was one of the seven women detained, writes the blog Ni Me Callo Ni Me Voy — I will not shut up or leave.
The other women were identified as Yaité Diosnelly Cruz Sosa, Yanisbel Valido, Xiomara Martín Jiménez, María del Carmen Martínez López and Damaris Moya Portieles.
The Rosa Parks movement is named after the Afro-American civil rights activist woman who sparked the bus boycott in Montgomery, Al.
Antúnez said police have subjected dissident women to sexual harassment in the past, and that his wife was once threatened with rape if she continued her activism against the government.
Dissident Miguel Rafael Cabrera Montoya, meanwhile, has started a hunger strike in a police station in the eastern town of Palma Soriano to protest his detention, his wife told Radio Martí. Yelena Garcés Nápoles said Cabrera is under investigation for a robbery in Havana last year. But he's not been in Havana in two years, she told Radio Martí.
In Washington, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved a resolution condemning the Cuban government for the death of Wilman Villar, 31, a political prisoner who died earlier this month after a long hunger strike to protest a four-year-sentence.
The resolution also asks all governments to push Cuba to halt human rights abuses and calls on the United Nations to suspend Cuba's membership in its Human Rights Council.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/02/2621727/cuban-women-on-a-protest-march.html
Amnesty: Cuba Releases 3 Prisoners of Conscience
Amnesty: Cuba Releases 3 Prisoners of ConscienceBy PETER ORSI Associated PressHAVANA January 23, 2012 (AP)
Amnesty International said Monday that three Cubans held without charge for 52 days following their arrest at a protest were released last week, hours after the human rights group named them as prisoners of conscience.
The release of the three also came a day after a hunger-striking dissident died, prompting condemnation from island dissidents, rights watchers, the United States and other nations. Amnesty had planned to designate Wilman Villar, 31, a prisoner of conscience but he died in custody before it could.
Ivonne Malleza Galano, Ignacio Martinez Montejo and Isabel Haydee Alvarez were set free Jan. 20 but threatened with "harsh sentences" if they do not stop their anti-government actions, the human rights monitor said in a statement Monday.
It said all three were detained at a Nov. 30 protest in Havana at which Malleza and Martinez held a banner that read "Stop hunger, misery and poverty in Cuba." Alvarez was arrested for objecting when security forces took the other two into custody.
"Amnesty International had adopted them as prisoners of conscience, as they were detained solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, and had called for their immediate and unconditional release," the statement said.
Cuba considers dissident activity to be counterrevolutionary, and the dissidents to be mercenaries out to bring down the communist-run government. It denies holding any political prisoners in its lockups.
Amnesty, which has strict criteria for who constitutes a "prisoner of conscience" including a history of nonviolence, had not recognized any Cuban inmates as such since the previous spring, when the last of 75 dissidents jailed since a 2003 crackdown were freed.
Villar was arrested in November in the eastern city of Santiago following an anti-government protest.
The Cuban government denied that he had been on hunger strike or was even truly a dissident. It described him as a "common criminal" sent to prison for domestic violence, said he received all the medical attention he needed and alleged that his case was being manipulated for political ends.
Authorities' indignation continued Monday as official newspapers Granma and Trabajadores published an editorial titled "Cuba's Truths." Taking up the entire front pages of both publications, it attacked critics' own records on human rights and defended the island, citing achievements in health care, education and literacy, and calling the accusations a smear campaign by Cuba's enemies.
"The so-called political prisoner was serving a sentence of four years, following a fair process … and a trial according to the rule of law, for brutally and publicly beating his wife, threatening police and violently resisting arrest," the editorial said
The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, which monitors detentions of dissidents in Cuba, sent an open letter to the government demanding access to the investigation.
It said it wanted to confirm or rule out its belief that Villar was unfairly and disproportionately punished for his political activities, held in solitary confinement and given inadequate medical care when he went on hunger strike. Signed by Commission founder Elizardo Sanchez, a dissident and former prisoner himself, the letter doubted that Villar was truly imprisoned for beating his wife.
"The family incident from July 2011 should be clarified, as well as the reasons why he would be freed and sent back to the family home despite the possible risks from a supposed situation of domestic violence," it read.
Cuban dissident blogger says exit visa denied
Posted on Friday, 02.03.12
Cuban dissident blogger says exit visa deniedThe Associated Press
HAVANA — Cuban dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez says she has been denied permission attend a film festival in Brazil.
Sanchez recently got an entry visa from Brazil. The sticking point was whether Cuba would grant the exit visa that islanders must obtain to travel overseas.
By the blogger's own count, it's the 19th time in recent years that she has been denied an exit visa.
Sanchez said Friday on Twitter that there were "no surprises" this time around.
She had lobbied for Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff to raise the issue with Cuban officials during a visit this week. But Rousseff told reporters she considered it an internal Cuban matter.
The issue intruded somewhat on a trip meant to highlight trade and cooperation between countries.
Dissident blogger says Cubans wanted more from Brazilian visit
Posted on Thursday, 02.02.12
Dissident blogger says Cubans wanted more from Brazilian visit
The Brazilian leader had vowed to make human rights a cornerstone of her foreign policy pointed to the U.S. detention camp for suspected terrorists at Guantánamo Bay on the island's southeastern tip.By Matthew BristowBloomberg News
HAVANA — Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez said her compatriots had hoped for more from Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who avoided criticizing the human rights situation on the communist island during a state visit to Havana this week.
Sanchez said she had looked for at least a "small wink" from Rousseff, who was imprisoned and tortured for fighting Brazil's dictatorship in the 1960s, after a jailed dissident, Wilman Villar, died last month following a hunger strike and President Raul Castro vowed to maintain single-party rule.
"It was pure chance that she came at this time, but people had hoped for more," Sanchez said in an interview last night in Havana. "I would've hoped for a small wink, a phrase with a double meaning that we could interpret, and that the government could interpret too."
Rousseff, who concludes a three-day visit to Havana today, said that it was an internal matter for Cuba to decide whether to allow Sanchez to leave the island after Brazil last week granted the 36-year-old blogger an entry visa to attend next month a screening of a documentary she appears in. Sanchez, a critic of the Castro government on the Generation Y blog, has been denied permission to leave Cuba for four years.
"Brazil gave the visa to the blogger," Rousseff, 64, told reporters yesterday in Havana before meeting with Castro and his brother Fidel. "The rest is not a matter for the Brazilian government."
Rousseff, who has vowed to make human rights a cornerstone of her foreign policy, failed to comment on the Cuban government's record, pointing instead to the U.S. detention camp for suspected terrorists at Guantánamo Bay on the island's southeastern tip.
"He who throws the first stone has a roof made of glass," said Rousseff, whose Workers' Party has long supported Cuba. "We in Brazil have our problems too."
While critical of the Brazilian president's stance, Sanchez said Rousseff's silence is preferable to her predecessor and mentor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's siding with the Castro government after the death of another jailed hunger striker in 2010, she added.
"I wake up every day and say to myself, today I am going to behave like a free person," Sanchez said. "Dilma once said the same. She paid a high personal and physical cost, but in the end life proved her right and Brazil became a democracy."
Julia Sweig, an author of publications on Cuba and Brazil, said criticism of the Castro government is more widespread today than it's ever been since the 1959 revolution and taking many forms that escape the attention of foreign governments and media. As Cuba's second-biggest investor, helping Castro ease state control of the economy, Brazil is well-positioned to discuss the island's rights record behind the scenes in a productive manner, she added.
"Yoani's situation bears zero comparison to what Dilma went through," said Sweig, director of the Latin America program at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. "Unlike Dilma, she hasn't been and won't be jailed or tortured and I seriously doubt she's going to be president of Cuba."
Cuba's government relies on beatings, short-term detentions, forced exile and travel restrictions to repress virtually all forms of political dissent, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report this month. Cuba denies it's holding any political prisoners and considers dissident activity to be counterrevolutionary supported by anti-Castro "mercenaries" in the U.S.
While blocked from traveling abroad, Sanchez has emerged as a leader among a group of young dissidents who describe the daily travails of life in Cuba through difficult-to-access social media. Many of her chronicles are published by newspapers throughout Latin America. She has also written a book, "Havana Real: One Woman Fights to Tell the Truth About Cuba Today."
Sanchez said the visibility she has gained through blogging gives her some protection from the Cuban government.
"The day I stop blogging, they'll put me on trial," she said.
Rousseff, who travels to Haiti today, discussed the possibility of hosting Raul Castro at a future date, according to a Brazilian official with the president who isn't authorized to comment on the two leaders' talks publicly.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/02/2620793/dissident-blogger-says-cubans.html#storylink=misearch
Human Rights Still Suffer Despite Change In Cuba
Human Rights Still Suffer Despite Change In Cuba01-09-2012New incarcerations for political dissent have not stopped.
Members of dissident group "Ladies in White" pray after a Mass and before the group's weekly march at Santa Rita church in Havana, Cuba, Sunday Oct. 16, 2011. The group continues to face harassment by government officials and pro-government groups.
In an ideal world, the Cuban government would adopt "respect human rights" as its New Year's resolution. Alas, the Cuban government remains stubbornly opposed to democratic principles, human rights, and fundamental freedoms.
New incarcerations for political dissent have not stopped. In December 2011, The Government of Cuba used harassment, detention and assault to block dozens of human rights activists, journalists, and others from observing International Human Rights Day. Members of the Damas de Blanco, winners of the Department of State's 2011 Human Rights Defenders Award, continue to face harassment by government officials and pro-government groups. Despite government claims to the contrary, independent human rights groups estimate that more than 60 political activists remain in Cuban jails.
There have been a few positive glimmers: Cuba's year-end release of 2900 prisoners and the announcement of some economic measures that could provide a greater degree of economic independence and relief to the long-suffering Cuban people. However, Cuba still has a long way to go. When it comes to human rights, the basic outline of Cuba's political system has not changed. One party rule brooks no dissent and jail awaits those who dare speak out.
Cuban blogger appeals to Brazil’s president for help to leave Cuba
Cuban blogger appeals to Brazil's president for help to leave Cuba
Dissident blogger Yoani Sánchez has issued a video plea after being denied permission to leave the country since 2004
The dissident Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez – famed for her outspoken online critiques of the country's communist regime – has issued an appeal to Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff, to help her leave the Caribbean island.
Sánchez, a Havana-based writer who has been accused by Cuban authorities of conducting a "cyberwar" against the government, has not been able to leave the country since 2004 because of migration rules that require Cubans to receive government permission to travel.
She has now been invited to the Brazilian state of Bahia in February for the screening of a documentary about press freedom in Cuba and Honduras in which she features.
But speaking to the Brazilian television channel Record this week, Sánchez said she expected her latest request for an exit permit would again be declined without "high-level intervention".
Sánchez told Record she had "exhausted all of the options inside my country to get them to allow me to travel".
In the video appeal to Rousseff, posted on YouTube, Sánchez called on Brazil's first female president to intervene.
"Please help me," said the blogger, who says it is her 19th attempt to get travel permission from Cuban authorities. "Through this small video I want to send a very respectful [and] very humble message … to the president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff."
"Unfortunately I am forbidden from leaving my own country – I have not committed any crime."
Referring to the time Rousseff spent in jail during Brazil's military dictatorship, Sánchez said: "I know very well that she has felt first hand … what excessive control and repression is."
"I have done everything that is within my reach but the wall of control, the wall of censorship, the wall which stops me travelling freely and returning to my island seems not to move," said Sánchez, whose supporters have also created an online petition calling on Rousseff to intervene.
Before Christmas, activists had hoped that Cuba's president, Raúl Castro, would announce major changes to the country's migration laws, particularly the rule that means Cubans require exit permits to travel abroad.
But while Castro, who officially took over from his brother as president in 2008, announced pardons for nearly 3,000 prisoners, those hoping for a loosening of travel rules were disappointed.
"The migration reforms … were not announced again," Sánchez says in her video appeal to Rousseff. "In the 21st century … we are forbidden from leaving and entering freely our country."
Sánchez has earned international plaudits for her blog, Generación Y, on which she publishes regular critiques of the Cuban authorities, often secretively posted from internet cafes.
In 2008, Time magazine named her one of the world's 100 most influential people. The magazine's profile, written by the American novelist Oscar Hijuelos, described her "feisty dedication to the truth".
"Under the nose of a regime that has never tolerated dissent, Sánchez has practiced what paper-bound journalists in her country cannot: freedom of speech," Hijuelos wrote.
But while the blogger's supporters view her as a standard-bearer for press freedom, Cuban authorities have accused her of conducting a Washington-backed "cyberwar" against the island's communist regime.
In a recent piece for Foreign Policy magazine, the Cuban blogger said that while many foreign correspondents in Havana feared expulsion if they offended authorities, social networks were helping independent journalists get the message out.
"Opening the world's eyes to the real Cuba … no longer requires a wire service dispatch; it can be done with a cell phone," she wrote.
Meanwhile, Cuban authorities have vented their anger at a Twitter user whom they accused of starting a wave of online rumours this week claiming that the former president, Fidel Castro, had died.
An article posted on the state-run Cubadebate website pointed the finger of blame at a tweeter called @Naroh.
In the story, entitled: "New lie against #FidelCastro fails on Twitter", the website claimed that after the rumours began "necrophiliac counterrevolutionaries, aided by some media, immediately started to party." Responding to the allegations that he had started the hoax, Naroh tweeted: "Cuba is blaming me for killing Fidel Castro on Twitter. Can I now consider myself a Twit-star?"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/05/cuban-blogger-appeals-brazil-president
Eleven News Stories Not Reported in Cuba in 2011 / Ernesto Morales Licea
Eleven News Stories Not Reported in Cuba in 2011 / Ernesto Morales LiceaErnesto Morales Licea, Translator: Unstated
1. The Arab spring
Only when the events in Egypt exceeded the predictions, did the Cuban press note (with tweezers) some isolated incidents. Nor had it published anything earlier about the riots in Tunisia and Yemen, nor did it later dig into the deposition of Hosni Mubarak. On Libya and and the fall of Muammar Gadaffi, it limited itself to denigrating the role of NATO, without mentioning the popular movement against the dictator. On Syria, Cuban press coverage remains minimal.
2. Latin Grammy Awards
As no Cuban artist in residence in the island won a Latin Grammy in 2011, the Cuban press accolades applauded only the Puerto Rican duo Calle 13, and omitted all exiled Cuban artists who were winners: Amaury Gutiérrez, Lena Burke, Paquito D 'Rivera and the late Israel López "Cachao".
3. UN special report on Iran's nuclear program
On November 8 the International Atomic Energy Agency of the United Nations presented a detailed report which showed not only Tehran's efforts to achieve the atomic bomb, but to do so in record time, based on special designs of enriching uranium by catalysts process methods. Not one word of this report was revealed in Cuba, an ally of the regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
4. Convictions for child prostitution
Five were implicated in the death of a 12-year-old child prostitute in the eastern city of Bayamo and four subsequently arrested for ties to a child prostitution ring were sentenced in September of this year to prison terms of between 10 and 30 years. Three of those convicted are Italian. Despite the national and international turmoil after the death of the girl, in 2010, the Cuban press did not reflect on the case.
5. Sports defections
In addition to promising young players such as the pitcher Gerardo Concepción and footballer Yosniel Mesa, two major athletes fled Cuba in 2011 through risky and illegal ways. The great Yoenis Cespedes, member of the Cuban baseball team and current national home run record holder, left the island on a boat bound for the Dominican Republic in the summer, and expects to contract with the major leagues. Paralympic swimming champion at the 2011 Pan American, Rafael Castillo, crossed the border and sought political asylum in the United States. Nothing was said officially in Cuba about either of them.
6. The "cubañoles"
In 2011 Cuba set a record for requests for Spanish citizenship. According to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, the Spanish consulate in Havana has already nationalized some 66,000 Cubans, and it is estimated that at the end of the process about 190,000 residents of the island will be citizens of Spain due to the Law of Historical Memory (qualifying requires having a Spanish grandparent). In Cuba, not only has this event been silenced, but Internet pages with information about how to apply are blocked.
7. Hugo Chavez's Cancer
With the exception of an official note on the surgery in June of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, news coverage on successive chemotherapy treatments in Havana, relapse, revenues emergency in Caracas and in general the Venezuelan president's illness has been practically nil.
8. Bill Richardson's visit to Havana
Only after former New Mexico Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson declared his frustration with the unsuccessful trip he made to Havana in September, did the official Cuban press counter with the reasons why the government had not allowed Richardson will meet with Alan P. Gross, let alone bring him back to the United States. During his stay in Cuba, Bill Richardson was ignored by the Cuban media.
9. Pablo Milanes Controversy
Nor was a a visit to Miami by one of the two most important singers of the Cuban Nueva Trova movement, Pablo Milanes, mentioned, nor was a word published about his accusatory statements against the repression of the Ladies in White and the stifling centralization of power. Only by alternative means did Cubans learn of the controversial Pablo Milanes concert at American Airlines Arena in Miami, and his public break with the regime of the island
10. Cuba's first gay wedding
An event covered by the international press found no place in Cuban journalism: the wedding of Wendy Iriepa, a transsexual, and the homosexual dissident Ignacio Estrada in August. Not even because this one-of-a-kind wedding occurred on the "symbolic" date of August 13th (the birthday of Fidel Castro) did the Cuban media report it.
11. Record for corruption
Scholars of Cuban issues classify 2011 as the "year of corruption in Cuba." Scandals in the fields of nickel (Sherritt International and Cubaníquel), telecommunications (Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba, known as ETECSA), the Cuban Volleyball Federation, the Tobacco Industry (Habanos SA), among others, led to dismissal of ministers such as Yadira Garcia (Basic Industry ) and legal actions against sports officials such as the glory of Cuban volleyball, Raul Diago. On all these scandals, the Cuban media issued terse notes, or in some cases ignored them entirely.
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