Uncommon Sense

A prayer for a free Cuba

Please join me and other supporters of Cuban freedom in prayer that 2010 will bring change and liberty to the island:

"Lord, give us freedom for Cuba and give us the necesary integrity to keep it forever. Help us Lord!"

"Concedenos Señor la libertad para Cuba  y concedenos la enterez necesaria, para mantenerla por siempre. ¡Ayudanos Señor!"

This post will remain at the top of the page through Friday. To read newer posts, scroll down.

A Christmas message from the Castro gulag

Antonio Díaz Sánchez

Cuban political prisoner Antonio Díaz Sánchez, who is serving a 20-year sentence handed down during the "black spring" of 2003, has a Christmas message for his fellow Cubans, and for the world.

The bottom line?

He is keeping the faith.

(H/T Oswaldo Payá)

Read more about Díaz, one of the leaders of the pro-democracy Varela Project, here and here.

51 years ago tonight in Cuba ...

Fifty-one years ago tonight in Cuba, the dictator Batista fled, only to be replaced by a more despicable tyrant.

That story, unfortunately, continues to be told on the streets of Havana and in the prison cells of the Castro gulag. Hopefully, 2010 will bring, finally, an end to this sad, torturous chapter of Cuban history.

Tonight, though, I choose to remember that on that same evening that Batista got the word that he was done, my grandfather and his brothers got on a boat and left for Key West, Fla.

They, too, were fleeing whatever Castro had planned for them, but with their landing on America, they started the history of my family in the United States.

For them and for that, I am very grateful, and ever more determined that the freedom we have enjoyed and taken full advantage of in this country for 51 years, will again be shared by our brothers and sisters and cousins in Cuba.

God bless my grandfather and his brothers.

God bless America.

And God bless a free Cuba.

In Cuba, journalists are treated like terrorists

The quote of the day about Cuba — and other bottom-dwelijng regimes — comes from the Reporters Without Borders report summarizing how journalists around the world were killed, jailed, censored, etc. in 2009 for just doing their jobs:

"At least 167 journalists are in prison around the world at the end of 2009. One would need to go back to the 1990s to find so many of them in jail. Although the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression keeps reiterating that imprisonment is a disproportionate punishment for press offences, many governments keep laws that allow them to jail journalists, and continue to abuse these laws. The sentences given to journalists in Cuba,China, Sri Lanka and Iran are as harsh as those imposed for terrorism or violent crime."

To learn more about Cuban journalists in jail, go here.

More arrests of dissidents in Holguín (UPDATED)

The Cuban secret police Tuesday invaded the Holguín home of a dissident couple and arrested several activists gathering to show their support for a political prisoner currently on hunger strike. Among those arrested was human rights leader Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez," according to a report posted at Payo Libre.

The raid was the latest move by the dictatorship to try to break up the demonstrations in support of political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who has been on hunger strike since Dec. 3 to demand that his human rights be respected.

The raiding party was made up of secret police agents and members of the local "rapid response brigade," the thugs the Castro dictatorship uses to harass, threaten and otherwise bother its opponents.

The whereabouts of Antunez and the others arrested were not immediately known, according to the report.

Antunez, one of the giants of the Cuban opposition, has been arrested numerous times since his release from prison in April 2007, after spending more than 17 years in the Castro gulag. Each time, he has been released after being deported back to his hometown of Placetas, in Santa Clara province.

His arrest and subsequent release have become almost routine, but it is important to keep reporting these instances because A) of what it says about the dictatorship Antunez is struggling against, and B) of the chance that finally, and once and for all, the dictatorship will do away with its Antunez problem, and not just give him a ride home.

Of course, as the recent crackdown illustrates, Antunez is not alone, so he already has won.

UPDATED, 2:40 p.m. EST - Antunez reports that the protests on behalf of Zapata are continuing, despite the police crackdown.

(H/T Cuban Democratic Directorate)

Cuban political prisoner's health worsens

Horacio Julio Piña Borrego

Political activist Horacio Julio Piña Borrego is a political prisoner in the Castro gulag.

So it is no surprise that he is a very sick man.

Blame it on the bad food and the putrid water and the lack of enough time in the sunlight.

Blame it on the Castros.

Cuban ex-political prisoner: 'My life is in danger,' but he vows to stick with struggle

Cuban human rights activist Vladimir Alejo Miranda was paroled from prison on Oct. 23, after almost two years in jail.

Two days later, the secret police began reminding Alejo that in Cuba, you never are really out of jail, with a summons ordering him to visit the local police station.

In a first-person account published today at Miscelaneas de Cuba, Alejo describes how in the past two months, the Castro goon squad has repeatedly tried to force him to halt his pro-freedom, anti-dictatorship activities. Since Oct. 25, Alejo has been subponeaed or arrested at least four times, and subjected to, in his words, various other "threats, repression, humiliation, blackmail, and so on."

Most recently, two thugs arrested Alejo on Dec. 23 and drove him to Havana police station. During the six hours he was detained, officers took his fingerprints, blocked him from telephoning his family and warned him of further punishment — including a return to prison — if he continued with his activities. After his release, Alejo was forced to beg for a ride home on a bus because when he was arrested, he wasn't even given time to grab his wallet.

Despite the secret police's worst efforts, Alejo was not impressed.

His life "is in danger, but I will not stop continuing to fight for freedom in Cuba, freedom for political prisoners and prisoners of conscience and for the end of the harassment of defenders of human rights."

Cuba police arrest numerous dissidents in crackdown

The Castro dictatorship is afraid, very afraid of the Cuban people.

And it should be, considering the courage of those Cubans who stand up to its brutal tactics.

The dictatorship acts on its fear with some truly horrible measures, such as the arrests over the past several days of numerous activists attempting to gather to show their support for political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who has been on a hunger strike since Dec. 3 to demand that his human rights be respected.

The lead of the pro-Zapata campaign, former political prisoner Jorge Luis García Pérez, reports that since Christmas day, police have moved against activists in the towns of Banes, Palma Soriano, Antilla, San Germán, and warned them that they face greater punishment if they attempt to travel to Holguín to join the ongoing protest at the home of activist Caridad Caballero Batista.

On Monday, "an act of repudiation" erupted outside of Caballero's residence, which amounts to the shouting of threats and other insults by a mob organized and controlled by the police.

It's how a regime overcome with fear of its own people responds when it is challenged.

The activists, according to a report, responded not with silence, but with their own slogans:

"Freedom!"

"Long live human rights!"

"Down with the dictatorship!"

In this video, Antúnez describes the "act of repudiation," and you can hear for yourself the response.

Antúnez also reports that the planton in support of Zapata has been joined by about 20 prison inmates, including several political prisoners.

Cuba human rights worsened in 2009 — activist

Outside of Cuba, there are speculations, wishful thinking and outright delusions that Raúl Castro is in the process of bringing great change to his country.

Inside of Cuba, human rights activist Elizardo Sanchez isn't seeing it. In fact, Sanchez said this past weekend, the human rights situation worsened in 2009, and the new year promises little improvement.

"The year 2010 is not going to be better," he said.

Sanchez leads the unofficial Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, which attempts to keep track on the number of political prisoners — there remain in Cuba about 200, according to Sanchez — and other information about the human rights situation in Cuba.

Instead of improving human rights on the island, Raúl Castro has stamped his unique brand on the repression by resorting to more subtle, but just as nefarious techniques. I've dubbed it, "Catch. Threaten. Release."

Sanchez said his group has documented at least 700 to 800 instances where Cuban police have arrested dissidents, detained them for a relatively short period of time — from several hours to several days — and released them, but not before threatening greater repercussions if they continue with their opposition activities.

The dictatorship also has maintained its information blockade on information about conditions in its prisons, blocking the International Red Cross and other groups from visiting.

"The government knows it has much to hide in its prisons," Sanchez said.

Sanchez also noted that the regime has not responded in kind to overtures from U.S. President Barack Obama for improved relations with the United States. The dictatorship, according to Sanchez, does not believe anything short of a complete lifting of the American embargo, is worthy of a response.

Sanchez said his group opposes the embargo, but said it is not responsible for Cuba's most serious problems.

The wishful thinkers and delusionists may dismiss Sanchez's assessment of conditions in Cuba, if only to maintain their insupportable positions.

But if efforts to bring change to the island are to succeed, they must start with an understanding of how bad conditions really are and how much must be changed.

Cuban human rights activist kidnapped (UPDATED)

The Cuban secret police, like the dictatorship it serves, is a band of cowardly thugs. No act, like the kidnapping and beating of its opponents, is beyond the pale for these hoodlums.

Just ask human rights activist Iris Tamara Perez Aguilera, who on Saturday, Dec. 26, was grabbed off the street by the secret police, thrown into a car and taken to police headquarters in Holguín. She was kidnapped while on her way to an event where activists are demonstrating their support for political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who has been on a hunger strike since Dec. 3.

Perez, the wife of former political prisoner Jorge Luis Garcia "Antunez," was later released, but not before she was held in a tiny room apparently still under construction and suffered breathing problems brought on by the rough treatment.

Kidnapping and beating women — just another day for the Castro dictatorship and its thugs.

UPDATED, Dec. 28, 2009 — Something similar happened to about a dozen other dissidents last week.

Cuba political prisoner on hunger strike since Dec. 3

Orlando Zapata Tamayo

Cuban dissident leader Oswaldo Payá is calling on the international community to intercede on behalf of prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who has been on hunger strike since Dec. 3 when he was transferred to the Kilo 8 prison in Camagüey.

Zapata's captors, according to Payá, have responded to his protest with at least three vicious beatings, and the Cuban secret police has "kidnapped" Zapata's mother and abandoned her on a Holguín highway.

"We call on the international community, on all men of goodwill, to save the life of Orlando Zapata," Payá said.

New Cuban independent news agency is on the beat

Members of the newly formed Union of Free Journalists of Cuba. (Photo by Luis Carrillo Fernández.)

Cuban independent journalists are some of the best in the business, overcoming obstacles small and big — from the lack of pens and paper to write with to dodging the secret police — to break the Castro dictatorship's information blockade. Their topics run the gamut, from the regime's inability to provide a reliable source of safe drinking water to the torture and other abuses suffered by political prisoners in the gulag.

Cuban journalists, however, are about more than just providing the facts. Many of them, and proudly so, have an agenda: Freedom for Cuba.

That type of "bias" or agenda-based journalism may not be acceptable in most parts of American media, but it is entirely appropriate — if not required — for the situation in Cuba today.

By working as independent journalists, Cubans like Carlos Serpa Maceira, director of the newly formed Union of Free Journalists of Cuba news agency, place themselves in the front lines of the struggle for liberty on the island — and at the top of the list of potential targets for reprisals by the regime. No one, not the bravest, most emboldened journalist would do that in a police state like Cuba if they did not also have the dream that their work would help bring freedom to their country.

Serpa, one of the most accomplished independent journalists on the island, and other journalists struck such a blow for Cuban liberty this month when they organized the new press agency. They vowed that they would work for freedom of the press in Cuba, the unconditional release of political prisoners — including 27 journalists — the defense of human rights and for democracy for their country.

Again, that type of non-journalistic agenda might not be acceptable in other countries, but it is exactly what an independent journalist in Cuba needs to have if they are to be any good at their job.

'Shakira' don't lie about torture in Cuban prisons

You probably have heard of the alleged "torture" of terrorists being held at the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay. Less familiar to too many people, are the real abuses taking place in prisons in the rest of Cuba.

A Miami Herald story earlier this week detailing complaints by one former political prisoners and another dissident still in jail, lifts the veil on common torture techniques used by guards in the Castro gulag:

Inmates in a high-security prison in eastern Cuba are alleging that guards punish infractions with beatings and handcuffings in excruciatingly painful positions known as ``the rocker'' and ``Shakira.''

In the rocker, prisoners' hands are handcuffed behind their backs to the opposite legs, and they are left on their stomachs or sides for hours and even days, said Yordis Garcia, released Aug. 31 after serving one year at the prison in Guantánamo.

The Shakira involves hand and leg shackles linked to waist chains that are also applied for long periods and force prisoners to shuffle somewhat like the Colombian pop singer, wrote Ernesto Durán, still being held at the prison.

That the Castro dictatorship tortures its prisoners is no excuse for any abuses by the CIA or the military committed at Gitmo. We are much better than that.

What is just as deplorable is the selective outrage. Every day, there are reports — mostly in Spanish — about torture and other abuses in Cuban prison, from beatings to lengthy confinement in tiny, dark, putrid cells. Each and every story only confirms the vile, evil nature of the Castro regime.

The condemnations, however, are reserved only for what happens to terrorists held on only a small sliver of the island.

Hopefully, accounts of torture in the Castro gulag like those from García and Durán will continue to emerge so that the truth about its masters will be known by all.

For more about García and Durán, read my previous profiles of them here and here, respectively.

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.