Cuban spring ‘unavoidable’ amid repression
Cuban spring 'unavoidable' amid repressionby Laima Andrikiene08 February 2012
The international community must act against the undemocratic Cuban regime as it increases its repression of dissidents, argues a member of the European Parliament's human rights subcommittee
Who is responsible for the death of the Cuban political prisoner Wilman Villar Mendoza on January 19? Why, on February 3, was blogger Yoani Sanchez refused permission to travel abroad by Cuban authorities for the 19th time since May 2008? Why were opposition group Damas de Blanco – Sakharov prize laureates – not allowed to travel to the European Parliament in Strasbourg to collect that prestigious award for the freedom of thought?
There are so many questions and almost no answers from the Cuban regime. The situation of harassment and repression endangers the lives of Cuban people who defend human rights and civil liberties. We are aware that the regime is directly responsible for the death of four political prisoners – Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia, Laura Pollan Toledo and Wilman Villar Mendoza – as well as thousands of arbitrary arrests and hundreds of beatings, assaults, and acts of repudiation.
The death of 31-year-old dissident Wilman Villar Mendoza on January 19 after a 50 day hunger strike highlights the continuing repression in Cuba. Villar Mendoza was detained in November 2011 after participating in a peaceful demonstration in Contramaestre calling for greater political freedom and respect for human rights. He was charged with 'contempt' and sentenced to four years in prison in a hearing that lasted less than an hour. He was not given the opportunity to speak in his defence, nor represented by a defence lawyer.
The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, a human rights monitoring group that the government does not recognise, classified Villar Mendoza as a political prisoner in December 2011. The Cuban regime denies holding political prisoners and said in a statement that Mr Villar "was not a dissident nor was he on a hunger strike". The authorities did not even bother to tell Wilman Villar's wife about the death of her husband, and she was informed by some human rights defenders.
Almost two years ago, political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo died in similar circumstances, also on hunger strike, with the same demands. Activist Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia died last year after receiving a brutal beating from the political police at Leoncio Vidal Park, in the city of Santa Clara, Villa Clara province. Less than three months ago, Laura Pollan Toledo, leader of the Damas de Blanco, died under mysterious circumstances that have still not been clarified. Numerous reports issued from within the island over the past three months have reported an increase in the regime's violence against opposition – including cases of activists who have suffered fractured skulls after machete blows, and members of the Damas de Blanco who have been pricked with needles containing unknown substances while participating in marches on the streets of Havana.
The regime in Havana and its prisons have a system devised to eliminate those political and common detainees who protest against the injustice and inhumanity of their captors by denying them water and medical care, and confining them in freezing cells. Catherine Ashton, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, deplored the tragic death of Mr Villar and urged Cuba to continue working to make progress on respect of human rights and freedom of expression. "It's the second death in similar conditions in a very short time and it poses doubts concerning Cuban's judicial system and penitentiary," Ashton said.
According to human rights organisations, there is no way to know how many government opponents remain in jail, as independent investigators cannot visit prisons. In 2010, Raul Castro freed 52 prisoners who had been arrested during a 2003 crackdown, but human rights defenders from the island say that those releases have not changed the attitude by the regime towards dissidents and repression continues. Last year the regime decided to release 2,900 inmates, but following human rights defenders information, the dissidents were not released.
Political prisoners must be released immediately. The persecution of people for their legitimate demands for freedom of speech, thought and assembly is unjust. The lack of fundamental rights contradicts the principles of humanity and is a clear infringement of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of which Cuba is a signatory.
One could get an impression that Cuban regime is making free-market reforms which aim at reviving Cuba's socialist economy by boosting private enterprise. But the reality is much darker. So-called free-market reforms will not change much in relations between the state and citizens: the regime will still control 99 per cent of the economy. Moreover, those reforms will not provide Cuban citizens with their fundamental rights, such as freedom of thought, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. It is not a surprise that most Cubans desire economic opportunities and private property ownership, but at the same time they closely tie these economic changes to political changes in the form of free elections, free expression, access to information and the right to dissent.
It is clear that the reality in Cuba is far from the state propaganda of 'reforms' and 'changes'. The regime deserves strong condemnation for these crimes and persecutions of people. The international community should take the necessary steps to prevent the further escalation of the extrajudicial executions by the Castro regime. Any repressive and undemocratic regime is similar to a dead man walking. The Arab spring surprised the world in 2011 throwing away one dictator after another. Spring is unavoidable and inescapable, in Cuba also.
Dr Laima Andrikiene is an MEP in the European People's Party and a member of the European Parliament's subcommittee on human rights
http://www.publicserviceeurope.com/article/1472/cuban-spring-unavoidable-amid-repression
Roots of Hope inspires a new generation to help Cubans find freedom
Posted on Sunday, 02.05.12ROOTS OF HOPE
Roots of Hope inspires a new generation to help Cubans find freedomBY CARMEN PELAEZwww.carmenpelaez.com
As I was lining up in the corrals before our run in the ING Miami Half Marathon for a fundraiser for Roots of Hope, a U.S. college network of students and their supporters who are helping find ways to connect with young Cubans on the communist-controlled island, I felt kind of helpless.
Ironic considering how empowering the many months of planning, training and fundraising felt. As a group, we chose to dedicate our inaugural Run for Roots race to Ladies in White founder Laura Pollán, who died in October in a Cuban hospital. But standing in front of the Freedom Tower, looking down at my bib number and the words "para LAURA" (for Laura) made me wonder if anything that I had done, or could ever do, for a civil society in Cuba would matter. As the fireworks went off signaling the start of the race, I decided to use the run as a meditation on Cuban dissidence.
I thought of Wilmar Villar, the 31-year-old political prisoner who died Jan. 19 in prison while on a hunger strike. I imagined how confused his two little girls, who will never know their father, must be. I wondered how they'd feel for the rest of their lives when people said to them that their father was a hero. Would they believe their family's sacrifice was worth the reward?
I thought of José Martí and how he spent more time in exile than in Cuba, fundraising in young American capitals and writing a few lines that would inspire a people for centuries to come. Our Bronze Titan, Antonio Maceo, flashed before my eyes as a figure of unwavering courage, the same kind of courage that Havana blogger Yoani Sánchez exhibits when she takes to her laptop to liberate all of us one tap of a computer key at a time. Though divided by centuries, they were united by purpose in even the most abysmal circumstances.
Looking at the thousands of runners ahead of me, it struck me that every Cuban I know strives for a better Cuba in their own way. Individually it can be inspiring, but collectively, it's made our best intentions the collateral damage of our heartfelt hopes. And why?
If we're all on the same side, why must the quest for a Cuban civil society be so divisive? More often than not, the talking heads like to pin Roots of Hope as counterpoint to the other Cuban exile groups because of our youthful membership and modern-day approach to Cuban relations. But in reality, we're just filling a gap, coming at the struggle with fresh eyes and a new set of possibilities.
We don't oppose our elders, we're the natural evolution of their work.
Thinking about that continuum, I wondered if we could move beyond our differences and focus on the net gain of our efforts. There's clearly not one right way to take on a dictatorship, no one person can do it alone, so why shouldn't we swarm in, like a pack of ants, each one of us working in our own way to eliminate the false construct of "us" vs. "them," transforming us once again into a "we."
As I crossed the finish line, exhausted, dehydrated and in pain, I wondered if Laura could have ever imagined that on any given Sunday, we'd be running for her. Could this 63-year-old literature teacher have guessed that she would have made such an impact on a young group of Cuban Americans so profoundly that we would choose to train for weeks, ask our friends and family for money and tell all that would listen about this small woman who liberated an oppressed people?
And no, Cuba has not been completely liberated yet — but at the end of this horrible chapter of our story, Laura she will be recognized as the lioness who showed unimaginable courage in the face of grotesque oppression. Her efforts paved the way for our forward motion. She mattered, and by mattering she showed us all we do, too.
Carmen Pelaez, who grew up in Miami, is a playwright who lives in New York.
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.
Exemption for Cuban Prisoners
Jose A. Gutierrez-Solana – Former Cuban political prisoner
Exemption for Cuban PrisonersPosted: 1/8/12 10:44 AM ET
My name is Jose A. Gutierrez-Solana, a former Cuban political prisoner, from January 1961 to January 1971. I was content when I came across the recent announcement made on December 23rd, 2011 by Raul Castro that the Cuban Government pardoned roughly two thousand nine hundred prisoners. However, the media spreads the recent law pardon, as a step towards a more open society, without an analysis of the details behind their penitentiary system and the governing laws.
For starters, according to official reports; only seven of those liberated had been condemned for political reasons. They are: Alexis Ramirez Reyes (completed 12 years in prison), Modesto Alexei Martinez Torres (completed 8 years in prison), Carlos Martinez Ballester, Walfrido Rodriguez Piloto, Yordani Martinez Carvajal, Yran Gonzalez Torna ( completed 21 years in prison) y Augusto Guerra Marquez. Furthermore, the number of prisoners who obtained the law pardon represents only 4% of the total imprisoned population, which fluctuates from 70,000 to 80,000 people, according to some estimates. A very large portion of the Cuban population has gone to prison in the last 53 years under Castro's rule. The mere fact that the influx of new prisoners exceeds the number of ones who received this law pardon demonstrates the decaying state of this once prosperous island.
In any democratic society the exemption of prisoners could be considered a good will gesture from the government throughout the holiday season, but in Cuba this is not the case. It is a political game used to mask the realities of a penitentiary system that is replete of prisoners, lacking the most basic hygienic conditions, and suffering from systematic hunger, as well as physical and psychological torture. This "gracious" law pardoned does not fix the totalitarian law which condemns any commercial activity, such as selling or buying food, construction materials, or any writing that could go against the ideology of the system, such as a pamphlet containing the Human Right's Declaration.
The law pardon that the Cuban regime has propitiated is nothing new, nor original. The system has always dealt this card as an escape valve to control the negative resentment inside the country and as a cosmetic cover-up in front of the world. These prisoners will be out of jail, just to come back to a society that is depleted of democratic rights. Therefore, I believe we need to look at the larger picture of the legal system that controls the society and the complexity of the penitentiary system. Because as long as the individual liberties and civil rights continue to be violated in Cuba there is nothing to brag about, nothing to celebrate.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jose-a-gutierrezsolana/exemption-for-cuban-priso_b_1181042.html
Lady in White Elizabeth Linda Kawoya Toca Summoned by State Security / Katia Sonia
Lady in White Elizabeth Linda Kawoya Toca Summoned by State Security / Katia SoniaKatia Sonia, Translator: Unstated
Elizabeth Linda Nanyonga Kawooya Toca, a member of the Laura Pollan Ladies in White Movement, was summoned by State Security for 2:00 pm on November 4th at the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) station at Infanta and Amenidad in Cerro municipality.
Elizabeth Linda, who is a Ugandan citizen, declared that a young man in plain clothes — who said he was an official of State Security and called himself Marcos — said that with the death of Laura Pollan and the release of the prisoners they had terminated the activities of the Movement and that he had orders from above to block the activities of the Ladies in White.
Kawooya Toca told the official that there was an official and clear commitment to the struggle and support of the Cuba Independent and Democratic Party (CID) to the Laura Pollan Ladies in White Movement as long as a single political prisoner existed in Cuba and there is no guarantee of the fundamental rights of Cubans and that she, as a deputy delegate of the CID in the Centro Habana municipality, made clear her position of support and membership in the Ladies in White. The official responded that she should leave that to the old women, that she was younger than all the women because she is 22.
Elizabeth Linda Nanyonga Kawooya Toca is a resident in Cuba and says she feels a connection to the fate of the Cuban people, she is married to the independent journalist and director of the CID Lisbán Hernández Sánchez.
Translator: Unstated
November 7 2011
Dissidents send out images of police crackdown
Posted on Saturday, 12.17.11
CUBADissidents send out images of police crackdown
One dissident got nine stitches, another oneBy Juan O. Tamayojtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
Cuban dissidents have sent out photos and videos of a large police crackdown in the eastern town of Palma Soriano that left at least five government opponents with head wounds, black eyes and other injuries.
One photo of the Dec. 2 roundup of 46 dissidents shows Henry Perales with two wounds on his shaved head that required nine stitches to close. Another shows AbrahanCQ Cabrera with one stitch on his forehead.
"That wound bled a lot because it was on a blood vessel, but it was a kick to the ribs on the right side that made me fall to the ground … It still hurts," Cabrera told El Nuevo Herald Friday by phone from Palma Soriano.
The images were sent to the newspaper by Luis Enrique Ferrer Garcia, U.S. representative of the dissident Cuban Patriotic Union. His brother, former political prisoner Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, heads the Union and was one of the men arrested in the Palma Soriano crackdown.
Union members and supporters took two weeks to smuggle out the photos and videos, via emails, because they had to work slowly and carefully to avoid police agents who were trying to find and seize the images, Luis Enrique said.
The Palma Soriano roundup was one of the largest and harshest police crackdowns on dissident in recent years. All were freed hours or days later – one of them 12 days later – without charges.
Forty-six men had gathered in a Palma Soriano house starting on Nov. 30 with plans to stage a street protest two days later to demand the release of all political prisoners and respect for human rights.
Cell phone videos shot inside the house showed many of the dissidents saying they wanted to show they were not U.S. paid "mercenaries," as the government brands them, but rather "defenders of human rights."
The unidentified narrator of some of the videos referred to the police already deployed outside "and the repression that awaits us."
Police indeed arrested the dissidents as they left the house in groups of four and five, and a video taken from a second-story balcony showed them punching some of the protesters and forcing them onto a U.S.-styled yellow school bus parked at the end of the block.
Cabrera said the bus driver, dressed in civilian clothes, hit him as well as Perales and several other dissidents with a wrench once inside the bus. A police officer in uniform later ordered the driver to stop hitting the detainees.
Other photos show dissidents Misael Valdes Diaz and Alexis Yanch OiCQ with black eyes and Emilio Dinza with a large bump on his forehead. Other dissidents reported black and blues from police strikes.
Angel Moya, a former political prisoner who was reported beaten in a police station after his arrest in Palma Soriano Dec. 2, said police punched him on the way from the house to the school bus but not afterwards.
Moya said Friday that he spent 12 days in a police lockup, in a cell that was smelly and had no water or lights and that he shared with common criminals.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/17/2550399/dissidents-sent-out-images-of.html
Cuban dissidents: Colleagues injured in police crackdown
Posted on Tuesday, 12.06.11
Cuban dissidents: Colleagues injured in police crackdownThe dissidents say they want police to free 10 dissidents arrested.By Juan O. Tamayojtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
Cuban dissidents vowed to protest at a State Security office Tuesday unless police free 10 government critics detained in a crackdown where several suffered head wounds, a broken rib and other injuries.
Police also severely beat Angel Moya, a well known former political prisoner, in a lockup because he would not stop shouting anti-government slogans, according to the dissidents. There was no word on his condition.
Dissident Danis Lopez de Moya said that as of Monday police had freed 38 of the 48 government critics arrested Friday in an unusually harsh crackdown as they tried to start a protest march from his house in the eastern town of Palma Soriano.
Police likely were holding the rest until the physical signs of the beatings they received has lessened or disappeared, Wildo Izaguirre, one of the 38 freed, told El Nuevo Herald by phone from Palma Soriano.
Lopez de Moya, who was himself arrested and released, said many of 38 already had gathered in his house and agreed to march to a State Security office Tuesday morning unless the other 10 are released.
Izaguirre, Lopez de Moya and Prudencio Villalón, another of the 38 dissidents freed, said the police crackdown Friday was one of the most violent they had experienced.
"As we left the house in groups of five, police jumped us, beat us and dragged us to the parked buses," said Izaguirre, who added that police lined up in a gauntlet pushed him to the ground and kicked him in the face.
Police continued beating the dissidents once inside the government-owned buses, Izaguirre added, and the driver of one bus also hit several of the government opponents with a mechanic's wrench.
Eurbis Perales needed nine stitches to close his wounds and Abraham Cabrera needed five, according to Villalón, who said he spoke with the pair in a police lockup after they were brought in from the hospital.
Cabrera was bleeding so much on the bus that he smeared some of his blood on a window, drawing anti-government slogans from some of the neighbors who were watching the crackdown, Villalón added.
Misael Valdes Diaz was treated for a broken rib and another dissident suffered a swollen eye, but virtually all were punched or kicked, said Villalón. He and several of the 20 other dissidents in one of the buses also vomited when police sprayed them with some type of crowd-control gas.
Police put the 38 detainees into buses that began dropping them off Saturday and Sunday one-by-one, every half-mile or so, on the road to Santiago de Cuba, the country's second-largest city.
Still detained were Moya and José Daniel Ferrer García, both former political prisoners freed this spring as part of a decision by Cuban Ruler Raúl Castro to release 52 political prisoners.
"I was told they [police] especially vented their anger on Angel and José Daniel," said Berta Soler, Moya's wife and the leader of the Ladies in White.
The 52 were the last dissidents still in jail from a harsh crackdown in 2003 that sentenced 75 of them to prison terms of up to 28 years after one and two-day trials. Most of them — plus another 60 prisoners freed — agreed to go directly from prisons to the Havana airport and exile in Spain.
Moya, Ferrer and 10 others insisted on remaining in Cuba and continuing their dissident activities.
As it freed the political prisoners, the Castro government also stepped up its harassment of dissidents, usually detaining them for brief periods to avert planned protests such as the Palma Soriano march.
Cuban authorities have carried out 3,327 such "temporal detentions" so far this year, compared to 2,074 in all of 2010, according to a report from Havana on Monday by the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation.
The march Friday in Palma was to have been part of a rotating series of street protests starting Thursday in Cuba's easternmost province of Guantánamo and following later from towns and cities to the west.
The "National March Boitel-Zapata Live!" named after two dissidents who died during prison hunger strikes, was designed to demand the release of all political prisoners and an end to human rights abuses.
Police detain dissidents headed for Havana forum on racism
Posted on Friday, 11.25.11
Police detain dissidents headed for Havana forum on racism
Dozens of Cuban dissidents were detained to break up 'Day of Resistance.'By Juan O. Tamayojtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
Cuban police detained more a dozen dissidents to force the cancellation of Friday's session of a forum on racial discrimination on the island, according to forum organizers.
Dissidents also reported several dozen detentions earlier this week to avert street protests on Thursday, declared a nationwide "Day of Resistance." Most of them had been freed by Thursday night.
Antonio Madrazo, national coordinator of the Citizens' Committee for Racial Integration, said about 40 people attended Thursday's opening session of the 2nd annual Forum on Race and Cubanness at his Havana apartment.
But police told him at 7 a.m. Friday that they would not allow any further sessions. Stationed outside his apartment, they began turning away people as they arrived, and arresting those who resisted, Madrazo added.
"Right now Rafael Campos is trying to get in. He's at the door," he told El Nuevo Herald by phone. Minutes later, he added, "Rafael Campos has been arrested. Police are taking him away."
Madrazo said that among those detained were dissidents Manuel Cuesta Morua, Darsi Ferrer and Yusnaimi Jorge Soca, as well as Danilo Maldonado, known as El Sexto, a graffiti artist whose work often include political messages.
The only person allowed through the police lines Friday was Juan de Dios Mosquera, a black activist visiting from Colombia, Madrazo added.
The Citizens' Committee was created in 2008 amid growing complaints that although the Cuban government has outlawed discrimination against its citizens of African descent, it has done little to eliminate actual racism.
The forum was first held last year "as a platform for communications to highlight the debate on the race issue, and also the culture of human rights," Madrazo declared.
Dissident Jorge Luis García Pérez, "Antunez," meanwhile, said that police had detained so many dissidents to block the street protests planned for Thursday that he "had not been able to get a complete tally."
Most of the dissidents, some detained as early as Monday, had been released by Thursday night, added Antunez, head of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Front for Civic Resistance and Civil Disobedience.
The Front has declared the 24th of each month as a "Day of Resistance," when dissidents across the island should try to stage whatever type of protest they can organize.
Protests were reported Thursday in the cities of Havana, Palma Soriano, Pinar del Río, Santa Clara, Sagua la Grande, Ciego de Ávila, Camagüey, Velasco and Cienfuegos, according to the Miami-based Cuban Democratic Directorate.
In the capital, well-known government opponent Sara Martha Fonseca and three other dissidents were arrested after they staged an anti-government march that left from a city park named after Martin Luther King, the Directorate reported.
García Pérez told El Nuevo Herald that police detained five men, and punched one of them, as they tried Thursday to reach his house in the central Cuba town of Placetas. They were later freed in a remote farm area.
Fifteen protesters marched down the streets of Pinar del Rio, the Directorate added, and dissidents in Santa Clara read from a statement demanding civil and human rights and chanted "down with the dictatorship."
Former political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer García reported that several signs saying "Down with Raúl" and "Down with Hunger" had appeared Thursday morning in the eastern town of Palma Soriano.
Human Rights Activists arrested in Santiago, Cuba for distributing pamphlets with UN Declaration of Human Rights
Human Rights Activists arrested in Santiago, Cuba for distributing pamphlets with UN Declaration of Human RightsBy Alberto de la Cruz, on November 24, 2011, at 8:51 am
On Hablalo Sin Miedo, former political prisoner and independent journalist Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia reports from Cuba that several human rights activists in Santiago de Cuba were attacked and arrested by agents of the Castro political police for distributing pamphlets printed with the UN Declaration of Human Rights. In spite of all the magnanimous "reforms" of dictator Raul Castro, it is still a crime in Cuba for its citizens to speak or express support for universal human rights.
Unfortunately, this news will receive nary a mention by the international media, and you certainly will not hear one "Cuba Expert" even acknowledge that this incident, or any incident like this, ever takes place on the island. The media has subordinated itself to the Castro dictatorship, and the expertise of the "Cuba Experts" is strictly limited to the promotion, advocacy, and defense of the criminal and murderous Castro dictatorship.
Between the Gun and the Cassock / Miriam Celaya
Between the Gun and the Cassock / Miriam CelayaMiriam Celaya, Translator: Norma Whiting
A debate encounter sponsored by the Catholic digital publication Espacio Laical took place on Saturday, October 29th, 2011. The agency EFE, the leading Spanish news agency, reported the event in a very laudable manner, as published on October 30th on the digital site Cubaencuentro. The report states that "The new role that the Catholic Church in Cuba has undertaken has provided forums for dialogue where even a dissident or a controversial academician are able to exchange their views in public with a leading intellectual public official." Additionally, it exposes details of the intervention of the founder of the Institute of Art and the Cinematographic Industry (ICAIC) and the director of the Latin American New Film Festival, Alfredo Guevara, who "gave a lecture on Cuba's current challenges" by addressing issues of economic adjustments, the problem of bureaucracy and the need to understand diversity and tolerance in today's Cuba.
Present at the event were Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the official academic Esteban Morales, the economist and former political prisoner of the Black Spring group, Oscar Espinosa Chepe, and a group of students, intellectuals, economists, foreign diplomats and "local and foreign journalists." The press release does not specify who these local journalists were, but they are presumed to be representatives of the official press, since there has not been any editorial opinion about said encounter from independent journalists and bloggers.
Nor did the official media give coverage to such a significant event, though one of the topics discussed was precisely in relation to the limitations of the press in Cuba and "the concealment of information to citizens," as discussed by dissident economist Espinosa Chepe, who was very positive about debates that are "civilized, not offensive, without exclusions or absurd prejudices, because ideological diversity does exist in Cuba", and he indicated that it was enough just to walk outside to listen to people's criticism. As part of his response, Guevara considered that secrecy had to end "radically".
Another of the aspects that EFE's report emphasizes is the opinion of many of the meeting's attendees about "the new role being played by the Catholic Church, providing spaces for dialogue on issues of all kinds and incorporating diverse opinions" and it added that "Cardinal Ortega himself stated last Friday that the Church is experiencing a new relationship with the State and the people of Cuba, and he confirmed that the dialogue initiated last year with Raúl Castro and his government continues, and it affects all areas of national life, including the adjustment process to 'update' the socialist model."
In reality, we must recognize that any debate space that opens up for dialogue in a nation so tense and fragmented as ours, will, indeed, be positive. However, it would be desirable that the intentions professed should correspond more consistently with the facts. Let's say that no debate about the actual Cuban reality should be considered inclusive when among the participants there is barely one representative of the broad array of non-official opinion – call them dissidents — of all of society, when not one member is invited from independent journalism or from alternative civil society that has emerged ever so strongly in the past few years, and other numerous and young voices that have much to say and to which so many venues have been denied.
One of the notable absentees at this event is the Catholic layman Dagoberto Valdés editor of the magazine Vitral, for many years and current host of the group's wonderful magazine Convivencia. There have been many cultural, literary and civic activities developed by this group of people from Pinar del Rio, led by Dagoberto, in defense of diversity, freedom, and Cubanism; however, they don't seem to qualify to take part in the debate of Espacio Laical.
There were also no representatives from the Cuban Law Association to offer an alternative view on the new legislation that is being announced, and the decrees that have been introduced in the very highly publicized process of government reforms.
Neither the Catholic Church nor Espacio Laical can be considered "new spaces" as they offer just the stage where discussions are confined to the thematic framework of the same old speeches disguised as reform, dictated by the same old speakers that have thrived for more than half century in the high politics of the country, apparently without perceiving any errors in the system. If those are the guiding voices, we are not before what is new or innovative, but rather in the presence of an opportunistic mutation of the same and already long-lived deadly disease.
Cardinal Ortega's approach also seems, at the very least, ambiguous, since the idea that the Church is experiencing a new relationship with the Cuban people and their "dialogue" covers all areas of national life, including so-called process of updating the socialist model. At least regular Cubans do not seem to feel the presence of the Church in their lives, full of all kinds of shortages and lack of places to express themselves. Monsignor Ortega is far from being considered a representative of the feelings of the Cuban people, and, so far, he doesn't seem to have as close a relationship with them as he does with the General. Nor can I understand the relationship between the purple and the olive green dialogue or their intention to renew socialism. It would seem that the Cardinal might soon receive his Cuban Communist Party membership card.
In fact, this Espacio Laical event has been full of the same secrecy that was so criticized in the encounter: there were no calls to attend, no invitation to all active opinion sectors, or media coverage of the conference and debates, or transparency. It was as if it were a conspiracy to care for a sacred venue, safe from the sacrilegious agitators who make embarrassing pronouncements, who plant themselves, who demand rights, who express themselves respectfully but without hiding their opinions. Apparently, new parameters have been established that maintains tight departments or niches, neither more nor less than the feedback of a new sectarianism, now scented with wax and incense.
Espacio Laical has often published brave and honest editorials, and has, in more than one occasion, expressed opinions and put forth questions that reflect the concerns of thousands of Cubans, but, in this case, it must be recognized that in practice it's losing the opportunity to demonstrate true commitment for dialogue, because one cannot ignore players who have been marking the beat on the transformation of Cuban public opinion long before the government is forced to occasionally temper its discourse or to implement –much to their dismay- the limited economic and social changes that seem to dazzle the press today.
The Cardinal, meanwhile, played a positive role as a mediator for the release of prisoners of conscience, but their freeing could not have been possible without the courage and perseverance of the Ladies in White, without the sacrifice of Guillermo Fariñas and without the ongoing activities of journalists and independent bloggers. None of them were invited to the event last Saturday, perhaps because the Catholic Church delicately does not allow itself the risk of offending the speeches of the holy hierarchy with the more legitimate civil claims, or because perhaps it considers the people of this country so inept that they can only be represented either by guns or cassocks.
Thus, I would argue that the real opportunities for dialogue have been taking place spontaneously outside of institutions. The Estado de SATS (where Art and thought converge) the groups OMNI ZONAFRANCA, the Blogger Academy, Voces digital magazine, the group Convivencia, some of these spaces are inclusive, where all opinions are welcome, where debates don't have stiff moderators surfeited with authority, or require the previous dictate of some anointed official. Good for Espacio Laical if it decides to promote and maintain a new debate forum, albeit half-hearted, but – let's be fair — the event this past October 29th was neither so unprecedented nor a dialogue.
Translator: Norma Whiting
November 11 2011
For Cuban women, Sundays are for protest marches
For Cuban women, Sundays are for protest marches31 Oct 2011 03:09Source: Content partner // Womens eNews
The Ladies in White, a group of family members of imprisoned dissidents, march during their weekly protest in Havana February 27, 2011. REUTERS/Enrique De La Osa
Relatives of political prisoners in Cuba–many of them women–are fighting to curb abuses they say family members suffer during incarceration. One of the most prominent opposition groups, Ladies in White, meets on Sundays.
(WOMENSENEWS)– Four women stood with anti-government signs in a well-trafficked square in Havana.
They were members of Ladies in White, a group that formed in 2003 after 75 political dissidents were jailed.
Dressed in white–the color of peace–they march to Catholic mass to pray for human rights and the release of relatives and loved ones in prison.
The group has been meeting on Sundays across Cuba for years. But this particular small demonstration a couple of months ago–on Aug. 23 in Havana–proved momentous. When a plain-clothes police officer came to break up the women, some nearby people defended the women and forced the officer to leave in search of backup.
It wasn't the first time bystanders had aided the women, but because it was in such a busy area, it was the first time such an action was caught on video with cell-phone cameras and uploaded to YouTube the very next day.
"It was visible proof, released to an international audience over YouTube, that there is an increasing support for the resistance movement," said Aramis Perez, a leader of the Assembly of Cuban Resistance, based in Miami, Fla.
Often, he said, reports filed from Havana are censored or written by government supporters and describe activist groups as "small and fragmented."
Two days later Amnesty International, the London-based rights group, published a call to stop the repression of the Ladies in White.
Police and government officials have violently attacked individuals and groups of female political dissidents on at least 25 occasions this year–sometimes while the women were engaged in nonviolent protest, and other times while they were with their families at home–according to a report released by the Assembly of Cuban Resistance in August. The report, "Cuba: Violent Aggressions Against Women, Human Rights Defenders," was based on daily communication with activist groups in Cuba.
'A Leading Role'
The resistance movement is carried out by a wide cross-section of Cuban citizens–urban, rural, farmers, students–but "women have been playing a leading role," said Perez.
One of those women is Laura Pollan, the leader of Women and White and the recipient of the European Parliament's 2005 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. Pollan died on Oct.14 at age 63.
Another is Bertha Antunez who lives in exile in Florida.
She spoke at a meeting last month on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly along with other human rights activists, including Marina Nemat, Iranian author and former political prisoner; Jacqueline Kasha, Ugandan LGBT rights activist and winner of Martin Ennals 2011 Human Rights Defenders Prize; and Rebiya Kadeer, Uyghur dissident and former political prisoner.
Antunez used the podium to urge the international community to help women in Cuba who are working for human rights.
"These women, today, at this moment, risk their lives, put their bodies before the police violence," she told a roomful of people at the forum, organized by a coalition of international nongovernmental groups. "Their voices shout for freedom while they are brutally beaten and they continue to take to the streets."
Antunez said her activism was fueled by prison visits to her brother, released in 2007, after 17 years of incarceration in various prisons, making him one of the longest serving political prisoners in Cuba.
"Soldiers from the prison savagely beat my brother in my presence and in the presence of two children from our family. We were beaten too. On various occasions I had to resort to a hunger strike to save my brother's life," she told the human rights activists, advocates and supporters.
Motivational Visits
In an interview with Women's eNews, Antunez expanded on how those prison visits had motivated her.
"I got firsthand testimony from many prisoners and there were things I couldn't believe" she said. "I never thought these abuses were taking place in my country. I knew there were injustices outside the prison because we are all victims of those; but this was torture."
A Cuban dissident group, the Cuban Democratic Directorate, based in Hialeah, Fla., reports that Antunez's brother, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, was arrested during a demonstration for yelling that communism was "an error and a utopia." His speech was considered "oral enemy propaganda," the report says. His sentence was extended several times for speaking back to guards and continuing to vocalize his political beliefs.
Antunez and relatives of other family members of political prisoners founded the National Movement of Civic Resistance "Pedro Luis Boitel" to fight abuse in prisons.
The group remains active and continues to organize peaceful protests, sit-ins and hunger strikes at prisons across the island.
This year, the incarceration of two of the group's members and other recent crackdowns on dissidents spurred Human Rights Watch to issue statement in June saying that Cuban laws "criminalize virtually all forms of dissent, and grant officials extraordinary authority to penalize people who try to exercise their basic rights."
http://www.trust.org/trustlaw/news/for-cuban-women-sundays-are-for-protest-marches
Recent Comments