Uncommon Sense

Orlando Triana González, Cuban Political Prisoner of the Week, 12/20/09

Sticks and stones may break your bones, but it is your misuse of words that can really get you in trouble in communist Cuba.

Anti-Castro activist Orlando Triana González learned that recently when he was sentenced to 1 year in prison after being found guilty of "disrespect" and "disobedience."

And what exactly did Triana, a member of Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoner organization and Central Opposition Coalition, do to be found guilty of theses "crimes?"

He took to the streets and shouted, "Down with Fidel!"

Abajo Fidel!

Triana, 45, was found guilty of disrespecting a decaying dictator — as if he is deserving of anything more — and then disobeying orders to shut up.

Sticks and stones may break your bones, but it is words — especially from the mouths of patriots like Orlando Triana González — that really scare the Castro dictatorship.

In Cuba, blogging means 'to feel free despite the fear'

Laritza has quickly become one of my favorites.

Lifted from the English-language version of her blog:

Blogging is a challenge and a pleasure for me, as much from the professional standpoint as the personal. It gives me the opportunity to say what I think, as well as feel, without prohibitions. The possibility to escape the control.

Writing on the internet is not easy for Cubans. A challenge. And we must have the courage to face it. Because every citizen is strictly supervised by the social and mass organizations. In the neighborhood, through the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR); in school through the Union of Young Communists (UJC); at work through the Workers Central Union of Cuba (CTC), among other “revolutionary” organizations.

What some people outside of Cuba may perceive as a structured social system, broad and plural, is really a meticulous and excessive machinery of control. Each person has a file where they note every incident in your student, work and social career. These controls are aware of each and every one of the residents on this island.

Thus the fear, the silent panic that accompanies every Cuban from the age of reason. You must be careful about expressing yourself and commenting on the system. If they report that you are in opposition, your existence can change overnight. You can lose what you’ve dreamed of so much, and your job, among other “punishments.” The saddest thing is that, in the majority of cases, the family is paying the consequences. A subtle and insidious way to repress, but still, at the end of the day, repression.

When your name first appears on an internet site, specialists in the Department of State Security immediately open a file. And they start to dissect and investigate you as if you were a rat or a rabbit in a laboratory.

At first you are paranoid. But you get used to the infernal mechanism of practically 24 hour a day vigilance. Today, I no longer give much importance to this paraphernalia of control that I used to fear so much. It’s all the same to me if they follow me, listen and tape record my conversations, take photos and record videos of me… I overcame all that fear when I decided to start blogging.

But I don’t rest on my laurels. I am aware of those who hold power and how far they will go to keep it. But I decided to take the risks. The frustration and impotence is much stronger than my fears. They will do me more damage than all the terror and control they can exercise over you.

Since I started blogging, my view of society and life changed. Now I act freely within the limits dictated by my conscience, common sense and prudence. Without limiting myself. I don’t have the mettle of a heroine. Nor do I wish to stand out or be famous.

I have acquired an individual freedom. I no longer have to justify myself for not going to the parade on May 1st or some other date, nor do I help at the pathetic meetings of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, just to have a guarantee that allows me to have a job with economic prospects or a promotion in my professional life. I behave and project myself as I am. Without hypocrisy, without a mask, with no double standard.

So blogging has become something very important to me. It is the way I have found to say what I feel, without reproach or censorship. To tell how I and those around me live, without embellishment or nuance. To be able to opine, inform, express myself. To feel free despite the fear.

Photo: Laritza looking at one of the blogs in a Havana hotel.

Poland's support for Cuba freedom is no joke

There is only a week left until Christmas, but if you still have some shopping to do, do yourself — and the cause of freedom — a favor and look for items with the label, "Made in Poland."

That would be a small, but just, thanks for a move by the Polish parliament this week to "adopt" 90 Cuban political prisoners

Cuban Democratic Directorate has the story:

Putting aside intense partisan disputes, the two leading Polish political parties, the Civic Platform and the Law and Justice Party announced the adoption of 90 Cuban political prisoners by 90 Members of Parliament from both parties in a press conference held Thursday at the Sejm, or Polish Parliament. The announcement marked out common ground for the two parties at a time of fierce pre-election campaigning. A delegation from the Assembly of the Resistance, a united front of over 50 Cuban pro-democracy organizations based both in Cuba and abroad, was present during the conference. The Assembly’s official reception at Poland’s Presidential Palace earlier this week has generated widespread coverage in the Polish media.

Two leading figures of the Polish Sejm led the conference: Adam Lipinski, leader of the Law and Justice Party parliamentary bloc, and Andrzej Halicki, Chairman of the Sejm’s powerful Foreign Relations Committee and leader of the governing Civic Platform.

"We are committed to the human rights of the Cuban people, which we will defend at the European level,” stated Lipinski, who was himself a leader of the Solidarity movement during the martial law years in Communist-ruled Poland. He described the adoptions as “a show of support for Cubans in the struggle.”

Andrzej Halicki, also a former leader of the Solidarity movement, made extensive remarks condemning repression by the Castro regime and expressing solidarity with Cuban political prisoners. "The Polish experience demonstrates to us that when a regime must engage in repression, as is the case with the Castro regime, it is because that regime is not strong. It uses repression when it is weak," stated Halicki.

The "adoption" means parliament members will adovocate for their respective prisoner in Polish and international settings. They also vow to reach out to each Cuban prisoner's family.

After some 45 years under dictatorial communist rule, the Polish people know exactly what is at stake in Cuba. The realize, correctly, that the struggle for freedom on the island is, in part, a continuation of their own successful struggle against oppression and repression.

Despite their own victory, they are not ready to give up the fight.

'Socially dangerous' Cuban activist gets 2 years in jail

Cuban opposition activist Omar Vidal Núñez Espinosa last month was sentenced to 2 years in prison after being found to be a "pre-criminal social danger."

No details were available on what "socially dangerous" thing he did to get himself thrown in jail, but it likely had everything to do with his activities with the Central Opposition Coalition and nothing to do with committing an actual crime.

Not that the charge, which only George Orwell could completely understand, requires that a real crime be committed first.

Cuban jails are filled with such troublemakers.

Cuban political prisoner Orlando Zapata in 'danger of death'

Orlando Zapata Tamayo

The extremes to which some Cuban political prisoners will go to demonstrate their resistance to their captors — for example, hunger strikes — is astounding. But so also are the cruelties they are forced to bear in the Castro gulag.

Please keep that in mind as you consider the case of — and, hopefully, pray for — Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

A dispatch posted at Payo Libre reports that Zapata, who was recently transferred from a prison in his home province of Holguín, is in 'danger of death' at the Kilo 8 prison in Camagüey.

"Zapata has been on a hunger strike for a week, lying on the floor of a narrow walled cell on the jail's 'corridor of death,' surrounded by insects and rodents, and refuses to talk with guards or prisoners," said another political prisoner, Armando Echavarría Carrasco, on Tuesday.

As difficult as might be, we must try to imagine ourselves in that cell with Zapata, we must pray for him so that he knows that despite the desperation he must be feeling, that he knows that he is not alone.

There is a lot we cannot do for the prisoners of conscience and other political prisoners in the Castro gulag, but that is one thing we all must do.

Cuba political prisoner Juan Herrera has a few questions for Raúl Castro

Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta

Imprisoned Cuban journalist Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta is not one easily intimidated by his captors, so it was no surprise to learn that from his prison cell, he had issued an open letter to Raúl Castro.

Herrera — who has been imprisoned since the "black spring" crackdown of 2003, and who has suffered numerous tortures because of his intransigence —recently composed a letter to the dictator, complete with several tough questions:

Why has Cuba become the largest prison in the Western Hemisphere?

Why does his regime persecute the Damas De Blanco ("Ladies In White"), "helpless" women who are only demanding freedom for political prisoners?

Why does Cuba sign human rights treaties, only to violate their provisions?

Why isn't the International Red Cross allowed to visit Cuban prisons?

Why in Cuba is there still racism?

So far, no response from the dictator, but if recent events are any indication, Castro doesn't put much stock in correspondence from Cuban citizens.

In a telephone recording posted at Radio Martí, Herrera said he anticipates he will be punished for his "contempt" for Raúl Castro, but don't worry, he remains committed to the cause of Cuban liberty.

Cuban blogger Laritza lays down the law (UPDATED)

Laritza Diversent

Despite numerous political and technological obstacles, the number of Cubans launching blogs to record their observations, criticisms, etc. continues to grow, each one doing their part to break the information blockade enforced by Castro dictatorship for more than 50 years to keep itself in power.

This morning, I discovered  Leyas de Laritza, or "Laritza's Laws," written by independent journalist Laritza Diversent. I was not familiar with her work, but in reading English translations of some of her recent postings, it is clear she has a keen journalist's eye and the ability to take what she's see and hear to paint snapshots of the sad, dire condition of Cuban society.

In one post, "A sad story," Diversent re-creates a conversation she had on a bus with a man whose niece had died six months earlier, and the difficulties the family had had with the funeral arrangements. You can read the details of the story for yourself, but there is one passage that illustrates the force independent journalists like Diversent are playing in Cuba today:

Almost at his stop me, already at the door, the stranger told me, “But that’s not the only thing that happened.” They placed the baby in a coffin half a meter longer than her size. The indignation of the mother was such that she loudly called for an independent journalist to report the lack of respect.

He got off so fast I didn’t have time to tell him that I am an independent journalist. During the rest of the trip I didn’t talk to anyone else.

I was meditating. And I realized the importance of the work we do. It gave me satisfaction to hear, from the mouth of a stranger, that when there is helplessness and outrage they think of us, the independent journalists, as a valid alternative way to protest.

This morning, I also discovered another worthwhile read from Cuba, Mala Letra, or "Bad Handwriting."

UPDATED, Dec. 17, 2009 — Yoani Sanchez has more on on the blogger explosion in Cuba.

At least 83 Cuban dissidents detained on Human Rights Day

The air was thick with fear and worry in the sewers where the leaders of the Castro dictatorship reside on Dec. 10, International Human Rights Day, and they responded by ordering their secret police to round up as many potential troublemakers as they could.

A preliminary report posted online this morning lists the names of 83 Cuban dissidents who were detained by police to block them from using the day to demand human rights be recognized and respected on the island.

Of those, 58 were arrested and held for several hours, and 25 were held under house arrest, according to the unofficial Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

There is no way of knowing for sure, but the actual number of arrests and detentions is likely to be much higher. It is difficult for activists to gather and communicate the numbers, and it's not like the Cuban police issues press releases every time it arrests a dissident.

The good news is that for every Cuban who was blocked from marching for human rights or gathering with like-minded countrymen, there were others meeting in homes and street corners to demonstrate for human rights in Cuba. Scroll through Web sites like Miscelaneas de Cuba, and you will see the evidence that the struggle for liberty is growing on the island.

To help put in perspective the magnitude of last week's crackdown, consider this:

EIghty-three people arrested in Cuba, with a population of 11.2 million, is the equivalent in the United States, with a population of 304 million, of 2,253 Americans.

You may not have heard about what happened in Cuba last week, but just imagine if something similar — 2,253 arrests to block Americans from exercising their freedom of expression — had happened here.

Would you have cared then?

For the list of the names of Cuban dissidents arrested Thursday, go here.

Diaz-Balart stands up for Antúnez (UPDATED)

Antúnez and his wife Yris

U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart took to the House floor Monday evening to speak up on behalf of Cuban human rights activists Jorge Luis García Perez and his wife Yris, after they were arrested Friday, three days after Antúnez released an open letter he wrote to Raúl Castro.

Here is Diaz-Balart's speech:

Madam Speaker, Senator Bob Menendez gave an important speech last Thursday, December 10, opposing concessions to the dictatorship of Cuba. In his speech Senator Menendez read out loud an open letter which had been sent by one of Cuba's true heroes — a giant of the resistance to the Cuban tyranny — Jorge Luis Garcia Perez ``Antunez,'' here photographed with his wife, Yris Perez Aguilera, a letter to the titular Cuban dictator, Raul Castro, on Tuesday, December 8.

``Mr. Raul Castro,'' Antunez wrote, ``for months now my wife Yris Tamara Perez Aguilera and I have been kept in extrajudicial house arrest by your political police. Mr. Dictator, let me ask you some questions that may help clarify some doubts for those fellow countrymen of mine who may at some point have had hope your government would reduce the repression or even carry out democratic openings.

``What do you feel when you incite or allow people who call themselves men to beat and drag through the streets women like Damaris Moya Portieles, Maria Diaz Rondon, Ana Alfonso Arteaga, Sara Marta Fonseca, Yris Perez and now more recently the blogger Yoani Sanchez?

``How can you sleep after your subordinates cruelly beat, more than once, Idania Yanez Contreras while she was pregnant?

``How can you and your government talk about the battle of ideas, when ideas constantly face repression with beatings and arrests and years of imprisonment?

``Maybe your followers will not dare respond, but I who am in the long list of those who do not fear you, will answer:

``You act like that because you are a cruel man, insensitive to the pain and suffering of others; because, loyal to your anti-democratic 
and dictatorial vocation, you are convinced that dictatorships such as yours can only sustain themselves by fear and torture, and that even the most minimal of openings can end the only thing that interests you: staying in power.

``And finally, speaking of my case in particular, I will respond to you without the need to first ask of you the motives for such focused repression against my person.''

Antunez, by the way, Madam Speaker, now 45 years old, was a political prisoner for 17 years until 2007.

He continued to write, ``Your government and its lackey-repressive forces cannot forgive my two great and only crimes. First, that for almost two decades of torture and cruelties during my unjust and severe imprisonment, you were not able to break my dignity and my position as a political prisoner. Second, because despite all the violence and harassment - -and above all the risk of returning to prison -- I have decided to not abandon my country, where I will continue fighting for a change I believe to be as necessary as it is inevitable.''

Signed, in the City of Placetas, by Jorge Luis Garcia Perez ``Antunez'', Tuesday, December 8.

On Friday, December 11, Antunez and his wife, Yris Perez Aguilera, she is a heroine, were violently arrested. The doctrine of Fidel Castro's hero Adolf Hitler was again devoutly followed: ``The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence.''

``This is kidnapping,'' yelled Yris. ``Long live human rights,'' shouted Antunez as they were being beaten and taken away by the Castros' political police on Friday.

I condemn the brutal arrest of these two heroes by the Castros' cowardly thugs. The days of the Castros' racist totalitarian tyranny in Cuba are coming to an end. Those who have collaborated with the violence and brutality of the racist regime will face justice and eternal shame. Antunez, Yris Perez Aguilera, her brother, Mario Perez 

Aguilera, Oscar Elias Biscet, Darsi Ferrer and many other heroic political prisoners of Cuba will be elected the leaders of free Cuba. That change is as necessary as it is inevitable. Because of heroes like Antunez and Yris Perez Aguilera, the day of freedom in Cuba is approaching.

UPDATED, Dec. 16, 2009 — Antúnez, who apparently has been released from jail, appreciates the support.

Michael Moore didn't tell you about this Cuban hospital

This, and not the fantasies of a Hollywood film maker, is the reality of Cuban health care for most of the Cuban people: Video shot at the Hijas de Galicia Maternity Hospital in Havana, June 2009. (H/T to The Real Cuba.)

Cuban political prisoner Ariel Sigler still a paraplegic

Ariel Sigler Amaya

For more months, Cuban prisoner of conscience Ariel Sigler Amaya has languished in a prison hospital, confined to a wheelchair as various ailments consume the former heavyweight boxer's body.

Obviously, Cuban health care is doing him no favors.

So the only obvious conclusion as to why the dictatorship won't grant Sigler a medical parole and allow him to travel overseas to receive treatment is that it is enjoying torturing the prisoner.

But at least the prison doctor is getting a year-end vacation.

Cuban political prisoner's health worsens in jail

A Cuban prison is no place to get sick.

Cuban health care may be a "miracle" outside the gulag's walls but inside, medical care — or better put, the lack of care — is just another weapon the Castro dictatorship uses against its opponents. With malignant neglect, guards and other prison officials torture their captives, providing only enough care to spare them the embarrassment of a prisoner actually dying.

That is what is happening to political prisoner Deisy de las Mercedes Talavera López at the Bellotek women's prison in Matanzas.

After a recent visit with her daughter, Verónica López reported that Talavera has lost a considerable amount of weight, is suffering from a kidney infection and her bouts with asthma have worsened.

Talavera has asked the prison's "re-education" officer that she be allowed to go to the infirmary, but she has continually been denied, according to a report posted at Payo Libre.

Hopefully, Talavera's time in jail will be over. She was arrested in January 2008 after she placed on the door of her home a poster expressing support for Cuban political prisoners. Three months later, she was sentenced to 2 years in prison on charges of "attacking" and "disrespect."

Fabio Prieto's Cuban gulag hell

Fabio Prieto Llorente

This is Cuban political prisoner Fabio Prieto Llorente's morning, every morning.

He wakes up after sleeping on a concrete slab in a hot, humid cell that is only 5 feet wide and 10 feet long.

He wakes up suffering the effects of various ailments — chronic obstructive pulmonary diseased (COPD), pulmonary emphysema, hypertension, hemorrhoids, chronic duodenitis, hiatal hernia, spina bifida, and stiffness in his hands and legs — brought on and/or aggravated by the more than six years the independent journalist/librarian has spent in the Castro gulag.

He wakes up knowing he probably will won't see the sun.

He wakes up not knowing if today, once again, the guards at El Guyabo prison on the Isle of Youth Pines will physically and verbally assault him.

No wonder his sister is worried that at any moment, Prieto's physical and mental health could collapse.

5 Cuban prisoners of conscience fast for human rights

Five Cuban prisoners of conscience — Pablo Pacheco Ávila, Adolfo Fernández Sainz, Félix Navarro Rodríguez, Antonio Díaz Sánchez and Pedro Arguelles Morán — commemorated International Human Rights Day last week by fasting for a day as a way to pay tribute for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Castro dictatorship marked the day by turning loose its goons on Cuban activists marching for human rights — including the wives, mothers and other relatives of prisoners of conscience.

On which side do you stand?

Cuba Idiot Watch: Makani Themba-Nixon

It pains Makani Themba-Nixon to admit it, but Fidel/Raul Castro's Cuba isn't perfect.

But as she sees it, it's still one of the best places on Earth, so she has withdrawn her name from a letter she and 60 other prominent black Americans recently signed criticizing racism in Cuba.

It was all a misunderstanding, said Themba-Nixon, she really is an idiot when it comes to Cuba.

"Although I know that racism (in Cuba) has not been overcome, I also know that the progress in Cuba is envied even in the United States,'' Themba-Nixon told the Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald.

Well, the Castros do run a fairly efficient police state.

"This does not mean that there should be no criticism, or no push for more progress. But I don't want any public statement we make to be turned into a weapon to attack a nation and a revolution that have contributed so much to the world,'' she added.

Well, there are those millions of exiles who have bettered the countries where they found refuge.

I will give Themba-Nixon the benefit of the doubt, and just conclude that she really is an idiot about Cuba, and that her sympathies are not the result of a twisted ideology — despite the fact that her retraction was first published by a Cuban government Web site. I know, perhaps I am too kind.

I wonder what prominent black Cubans, like Oscar Elias Biscet and Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antúnez," think about Themba-Nixon's assessment of the "revolution," but they were not available.

Ricardo González Alfonso, Cuban Political Prisoner of the Week, 12/13/09

Ricardo González Alfonso

Ricardo González Alfonso was one of the more accomplished independent journalists/independent librarians/pro-freedom activists jailed during the Cuban "black spring" of 2003, and he has lived up to that status during his more than six years as a captive in the Castro gulag. Despite the tortures and other horrors his captors throw at him, he has remained true to his principles and to the cause of freedom in Cuba.

Reporters Without Borders in 2008 named González its Reporter of the Year, and last week he completed his "25 days for freedom and justice," during which he limited himself to a liquid diet to demand the release of Cuban prisoners of conscience and political prisoners.

I first wrote about González in January 2006, as part of the "March 18 Project," a series of profiles of imprisoned Cuban journalists. (The series was the precursor for the subsequent Political Prisoner of the Week feature on this blog.)

González is deserving of all the attention he can get, which is why it was encouraging to see this TV news report last week about him. If only such stories could be done about all Cuban prisoners of conscience to raise public awareness about their plight.

However, that is not why I am again featuring González's case.

Instead, I offer this week's profile as a tribute to his older sister, Olga Alonso, a major source for the recent TV news report.

Alonso, who has lived in the United States for 45 years, recently posted videotaped pleas, in English  and in Spanish , for the international community to pressure the Castro regime to release her brother.

"We are extremely concerned about his health, and we fear for his life," Alonso said. "I beg you to please help us. Contact your local senator or congressman, your local media, TV, radio, newspaper. Anything you can do to pressure the Cuban government to release my brother and his fellow political prisoners."

I can only imagine the desperation Alonso must feel, fearing she will never see her brother again. I don't have the skill to put her feelings into words.

The least we can do is to let her, and her brother, know that they are not alone.