Uncommon Sense

Maikel Bencomo Rojas and Rigoberto Zamora Rodríguez, Political Prisoners of the Week, 5/18/08

The following post will remain at the top of the page through Friday, events allowing. For newer posts, scroll down.

Some political protests may be tolerated in Cuba, but they are never allowed.

The dictatorship always reserves for itself the right to say, "Enough is enough," and come down like a ton of tobacco on anyone with the courage to oppose it — or more precisely, the courage to express their opposition, even with a common slogan. Since they live under a dictatorial police state able to show itself on every street corner, Cubans have no protections against the whims of those in charge.

No one is immune.

Two young Cubans, Maikel Bencomo Rojas and Rigoberto Zamora Rodríguez
fell victim to those whims earlier this month and this morning are waking up in the Castro gulag.

Zamora, 37, on May 2 was sentenced to 2 years in prison for "disrespecting the figure of Fidel Castro," (which I guess means the decaying dictator is, still drawing breath.)

Zamora and three other young Cubans had been detained in January after someone was heard yelling, "Abajo Fidel!" ("Down With Fidel!"), but only Zamora was prosecuted in tried — in secret, of course.

What Bencomo, 26, thinks about the dictatorship is literally written on his back with a tattoo declaring, "Abajo Fidel."

That's not allowed, according to a court in Havana that on May 7 sentenced Bencomo to 2 years in in prison. The court action — which took place with little public scrutiny allowed — culminated 7 months of harassment of Bencomo by the Cuban secret police because of his body art.

One of the surest indicators of the repressive nature of the Castro regime is the jailing of political prisoners. To illustrate that reality, Uncommon Sense each week profiles one prisoner. There also is a Political Prisoner archive on the right sidebar. To suggest a prisoner for a profile, send me an e-mail.

For profiles of imprisoned Cuban journalists and related information, read the March 18 Project.

Human rights activist released from prison

Human rights activist/independent librarian José Antonio Mola Porro was released from prison this past Wednesday, after he completed his sentence.

Tania Maceda Guerra reported that Mola, president of the Cuban Human Rights Foundation, that Mola had been sentenced to 2 years in prison. But just as he was preparing fro his release last May, officials tacked on another year, with no explanation given.

Read more about Mola, here.

"My son resembles a skeleton"

José García Paneque

I was catching on my reading on some of the blogs listed on the left when I came across a fresh report on the condition of prisoner of conscience Dr. José Luis García Paneque, via Coalition of Cuban American Women: (WARNING: It may make you sick to the stomach and ache in the heart.)

Moralinda Paneque returned home extremely distressed and worried after her last scheduled family visit to her son on Monday, May 5, 2008, the Prison of Las Mangas. “ I anticipated an improvement in his health but that wasn’t at all what I witnessed…”

Dr. José Luis García Paneque’s semblance was a shock to his mother, father and sister, “…my son resembles a skeleton…he barely has any fat under his skin…he has stick like thighs, his backbone protrudes as he bends over…he is emaciated to the point that his stomach is almost touching his backbone…his skin color is very strange to me…I would describe it as grayish blue…”.

The 42-year old Cuban prisoner of conscience who weighs a little over 100 pounds told his family that he continues bleeding daily through the rectum, a complication related to the malabsorption syndrome he suffers from, an illness that he developed in prison and which does not allow the food he ingests to nourish his body.

Dr. García Paneque also expressed that he is having trouble sleeping at night since the common prisoners he is forced to share a barrack with make loud noises as they play games throughout the night.

Dr. García Paneque was arrested on March 18, 2003, and sentenced to 24 years in jail during the wave of repression that the Cuban government carried out against members of the civil society who were promoting independent ideas on the island.

The wife and four children of this Cuban doctor were forced to seek exile in the United States on March 8, 2007, because of the violent acts of repudiation that were being carried out against their home by mobs instigated by Cuban State Security.

Dr. García Paneque’s family makes an URGENT APPEAL to the international community since they fear for the safety and physical and psychological well-being of this Cuban physician who is unjustly imprisoned in a maximum-security prison for peacefully defending the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in his own country.

The Coalition also has the story in Spanish.

Dear Dr. Biscet

Break out your Spanish dictionary or log onto an online translator, write a note to Cuban political prisoner Oscar Biscet and send it to his daughter Winnie at Winnie_Biscet@yahoo.com She promises that it will get to her father:

"I WANT THAT PEOPLE WRITE SOMETHING TO MY FATHER ANYTHING THEY WANT TO SAY TO HIM. IT HAS TO BE IN SPANISH! IM GOING TO SEND ALL THOSE WRITING TO HIM AS SOON YOU SEND IT TO ME. I KNOW HE WILL LOVE IT. I WANT TO D[O] IT FOR "FATHERS DAY"

H/T Babalú.

Food not included

Microwave ovens on store shelves means another of Raul Castro's announced "reforms" is now a reality.

Now if only Cubans had anything — like food — to prepare in them.

Of course, it means nothing as long as these men are unavailable to buy one — presuming, of course, they can scrounge up the cash.

You say "embargo" ...

... I say a loophole the size of Texas.

No matter how many business deals the Texans are able to make with the Castro dictatorship — and there is no guarantee that any deals will be struck, despite the best efforts of slick hucksters like Todd Staples — the Cuban people will not be any closer to freedom.

American policy toward Cuba must be measured by only two standards: Is it good for the United States, and is it good for the Cuban people — that is, does it improve their chances for freedom. It is not enough for American ag interests to enrich themselves for the policy to be considered a success. Affirmative answers to both questions are required.

Otherwise, the policy, as any real Texan knows, is all hat, no cattle, and just a lot of bull.

Prisoner incommunicado

Cuban political prisoner Brian Rafael Gómez Gómez has been cut off from the outside world, apparently because the dictatorship has been unable to break him of his anti-communist, anti-Castro ways.

Authorities at the Canaleta prison in Matanzas province told Ernesto Rafael Mena Gómez that his brother was "punished for his misbehavior inside the prison," and that he would continue to be punished until he changed his opinion of the Cuban government, according to a dispatch from independent journalist Álvaro Yero Felipe, published at Payo Libre.

Ernesto and his 70-year-old mother tried to deliver a letter of protest to prison officials in Havana, but they were turned away. The officials told them they would not cater to "vagrants," much less those who are "crazy."

Ernesto fired back at the dictatorship.

"This is a mockery and a lack of consideration by the Cuban authorities. To them my mother and I are crazy for not having money to dress decently. ... My brother is sick and they know it, possibly gravely, otherwise why hide it. If something were to happen, the only culprit would be the Cuban government," Ernesto said.

Brian Gómez, who I profiled as a Political Prisoner of the Week last month, is serving a 4-year prison term handed down after he was convicted of being a "pre-criminal social danger."

Apparently, Brian, president of the Armando Valladares Democratic Prison Opposition Movement, is still "dangerous."

The power of "Y"

The thugs who run Cuba have a problem with anything that represents freedom.

Such as the letter "Y."

Cuban independent journalist José Manuel Caraballo Bravo, writing in English, explains:

Here, in a small island of the Caribbean Sea, there is a totalitarian government who is allergic to the letter "Y". Most of the inhabitants of this planet have free access to the internet; the only thing one should do is to pay. In Cuba the access to "Yahoo" is forbidden to the Cubans (first comment on the "Y").

This regime year after year tells their people that the enemy is about to invade the country. This assumed enemy is named "the Yankees" (second comment on the "Y").

In the government's cupola all the members are old persons, the "Young people" is far away from the power (third comment on the "Y").

After the historic visit of the Pope John Paul II in 1998, every December 24th is a holiday; but the word Yule (also Christmas) is not mentioned by the authorities, even the Communist Party -the unique & governing party- sends an internal message to the commercial centers which reads: "Prohibited to make reference to Yuletide (Christmas season)" (fourth comment on the "Y").

And now, in order to finish, the last and newest comment on the letter "Y": A young Cuban blogger who uses cyberspace to voice sharp criticism of the Havana government won the prestigious Ortega y Gasset Prize ( awarded by Spain's top-selling newspaper, El Pais) in digital journalism for creating a blog called "Generation Y," which gets more than 1 million hits a month, mostly from abroad; but Cuban authorities have refused to give a travel visa to Yoani Sanchez, 32, who was to have flown to Spain to receive a top journalism award, the writer told AFP Tuesday.

Up to here the brief comments of a totalitarian government who is allergic to the "Yahoo", "Yankees", "Young people", "Yuletide", and the "Generation Y created by Yoani". If you'd like more information try to ask someone from the government for the reason; but be careful because WHY ends in a "Y".

Independent journalist fired from job

In Cuba, independent journalism very seldom pays the bills, so often its practitioners rely on other jobs to support themselves and/or their families.

Which puts them at the mercy of the communist authorities. If they misbehave — that is, if they tell stories the dictatorship would prefer remain untold or participate in activities it would rather repress — they risk losing their jobs, which exposes them to a whole other set of problems. After all, anyone who leaches off the state is probably a counter-revolutionary.

Losing his job is exactly what happened to independent journalist Francisco Blanco Sanabria on May 2.

He arrived for work at a sugar mill in the town of Ranchuelo, in Villa Clara province, to find he had been fired, on orders from State Security, according to a report filed by independent journalist Yesmy Elena Mena Zurbano. In a meeting attended by factory officials, as well as hacks with State Security and the Union of Young Communists, the mill's director told Blanco he was being let go because of three unauthorized absensces from work.

There also was a reference to a report that Blanco had distribued CAMBIO bracelets to other workers at the mill.

The officials also Blanco he could appeal to government labor officials, but he would not be able to work until the matter was resolved.

Prisoner treated for depression

José Ubaldo Izquierdo Hernández

Imprisoned Cuban journalist José Ubaldo Izquierdo Hernández was transferred back to Guanajay from a military hospital in Havana, where he had been since December, according to a report from independent journalist Idania Yanes Contreras posted at Payo Libre.

Izquierdo reported via telephone that he had been receiving psychiatric treatment, including anti-depressants and sleeping pills, for treatment of the depression he had been suffering when admitted to the Carlos J. Finley military hospital. He also received treatment for high triglycerides in his blood and for bleeding intestines.

Izquierdo, 42, was arrested during the "black spring" of 2003, and sentenced to 16 years in prison. In his addition to his work as a journalist, Izquierdo also headed an independent library in the town of Güines, in Havana province.

Humberto Eladio Real Suarez, Political Prisoner of the Week, 5/11/08

Humberto Eladio Real Suarez The death penalty is no mark of a "civilized" society, and no matter how it is carried out — whether by a Cuban firing squad or Texan prison guards pushing a lethal cocktail of drugs into a condemned man's arm — it is an affront to everything that is right and moral. Where it is allowed, the death penalty says more about the executioner — or more exactly, the system he represents — than it does about the most brutal murderer. One thing the death penalty says about the United States is that we are willing to stand in league with some of the world's most brutal dictatorships, including the Castro regime in Havana, in executing our own citizens. That condemned men in the United States have more "rights" before they are put to death does relieve us of our moral responsibility for allowing in our name state-sanctioned murder nor of the stain of association with some of the world's worst tyrants. Raul Castro, one of the world's most skilled practitioners of the death penalty, drew headlines last month when he commuted the death sentences of most — but not all — prisoners on Cuba's death row. (That is, where Cuban prisoners officially sentenced to die wait their turn, and not the rest of the gulag where Cuban prisoners, political and otherwise, are condemned to a slow death by abuse and neglect.) Yes, the news was welcome, but it was not an abolishment of the death penalty, nor enough to forget the Castro dictatorship's many other sins. One prisoner not covered by Castro's announcement was the Cuban American prisoner, Humberto Eladio Real Suarez. Real was one of seven exiles who snuck into Cuba in October 1994 and soon after were captured. In 1996, he was convicted and sentenced to death for murdering a guard. Is Real a political prisoner or just a common criminal? In Cuba, where there is no rule of law and the accused have few, if any rights, there really is no difference. A fellow blogger explains:

(M)ost prisoners in Cuban jails are political prisoners because they have been convicted of "crimes" which are not penalized anywhere else but in Communist Cuba. It would be closer to the truth to say that every prisoner incarcerated by Castro is a political prisoner than to claim that only 220 are. Where there is no Rule of Law, there can be no justice. When the administration of what passes as "law" is in the hands of criminals and the State itself is a criminal enterprise, no man convicted under such a dispensation can be considered guilty and no sanction imposed on him legitimate. It is offensive to any concept of morality to claim that there could be one group of prisoners that received "justice" at the hands of a criminal State and another that did not.

That is even more true for those condemned to die by such a criminal enterprise.

One of the surest indicators of the repressive nature of the Castro regime is the jailing of political prisoners. To illustrate that reality, Uncommon Sense each week profiles one prisoner. There also is a Political Prisoner archive on the right sidebar. To suggest a prisoner for a profile, send me an e-mail.

For profiles of imprisoned Cuban journalists and related information, read the March 18 Project.

A dangerous woman

Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez's words from this Wall Street Journal profile in December are ringing in my ears:

"You believe that you are free, and try to act like it. Little by little this can be contagious for others."

Little wonder her blog is so popular. Little wonder the Castro dictatorship denied her permission to travel to Spain to receive a top journalism prize.

Watch the WSJ profile:

For a powerful commentary on why Yoani matters for Cuba and for Cubans, read KillCastro.

Sign this petition

I just left this comment at the Web site for an online petition demanding the release of Cuban political prisoners:

Until the last Cuban political prisoner is released from the Castro gulag, Cuba and all Cubans will not be free. Cubans, Cuban Americans and anyone who treasures liberty, have a responsibility to act on behalf of these brave men and women who refuse to subject themselves to tyranny and are willing to sacrifice what little liberty they enjoy so that their nation is one day truly free. Talk to your friends and family. Say a prayer. And yes, sign this petition. It may only be words and a Web site, but each signature represents a person who refuses to remain silent in the face of this great evil. Until the last political prisoner is released and the Cuban dictatorship is vanquished. all of us will be that much less free.

If you truly love your freedom and believe you are not fully free until men and women are free, you have a responsibility to sign this petition. Whether it succeeds in forcing the dictatorship to empty its jails of men like Oscar Biscet, Omar Rodriguez and Antonio Díaz — it probably won't — reaching the goal of 1 million signatures would send a powerful message to the Castro brothers that they can no longer hide in the shadows or behind their propaganda. The world is on to them, and they are being held to account for the crimes and for their evil.

For more about the petition campaign, read here.

To sign it, go here or aquí.

And to learn more about Cuban political prisoners, click on any of the names on the right sidebar.

No "white card" for Yoani (UPDATED)

Underlying a lot of the reporting about Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez are questions and speculations about what the Castro dictatorship really thinks about her work.

How does she do it?

And how does she get away with it?

After all, she is able to pull off what would otherwise seem impossible in a totalitarian society: The publication for all the world to read of incisive descriptions and commentaries of life in that society, words that that tyranny would probably prefer best be left unsaid and unwritten.

If she had not receive so much publicity from the international press — TIME magazine recently named her one of the world's most influential people — wouldn't the dictatorship long ago move to silence her?

The dictatorship has all but settled any doubts about what it thinks about Sánchez by so far denying her permission to travel to Spain to accept on Wednesday a prestigious journalism prize she was recently awarded, according to the Spanish newspaper El Pais.

Sanchez told the newspaper she is "pessimistic" the government will issue her the required "white card" allowing her to travel. She said the obstacles she has encountered reveal more about Cuba today than anything she has written on her blog.

Sanchez added that she thinks hers is the "perfect test" to determine whether recent changes announced by Raúl Castro are real or just words.

Sanchez, 32, last month was named the winner of the Ortega y Gasset Prize for the category of digital journalism.

Perhaps the best of the many profiles written about Sanchez was a short essay in TIME written by Cuban American author Oscar Hijuelos:

Lord knows, but had the resourceful and courageous Yoani Sánchez, 32, come of age before the Internet, it's most likely that we would have never heard of her. Nor would we have had the opportunity to read her charming but pugnacious slice-of-life portraits of Cuba, which she has been sending out through cyberspace since April 2007 as the Generación Y blogger (desdecuba.com/generaciony).

Trained as a philologist in Havana but denied a career in academia — her dissertation, entitled Dictatorships in Latin American Literature, was perceived as a veiled criticism of the Castro regime — Sánchez has made a living working in Havana's tourist industry.

More important, under the nose of a regime that has never tolerated dissent, Sánchez has practiced what paper-bound journalists in her country cannot: freedom of speech. The pieces she has been clandestinely sending out from Internet cafés — while posing as a tourist—are often funny, elegantly written and poignant. Her subjects have included the shortage of lemons, the turgid proceedings of the Cuban parliament and the slowness of meaningful reforms by Raúl Castro.

These have earned her international acclaim. With a feisty dedication to the truth, Yoani Sánchez's activities bode well for the future of her country.

Others on the list include Oprah Winfrey, the Dalai Lama and the three U.S. presidential candidates.

Sánchez took it all in stride, writing on her blog in a post entitled, "What am I doing there?":

"Along with 99 famous people, TIME magazine has put me on its list of influential people for 2008. I, who have never climbed on the stage ... and who my own neighbors who don't know if 'Yoani' is written with an 'h' in the middle or a 's' at the end. I am more surprised to be listed under the heading of 'Heroes and Pioneers,' but I would prefer the category of citizen.

"Of the countless ways to reach that famous list, I believe I have traveled by foot the most unusual way. It is not underpinned by economic power, charisma before cameras, political control or religious ancestry. I simply dedicated myself to telling my reality. ... I have come to believe that the voice of an individual can push the walls and oppose the fading myths. Now I have just enough vanity to imagine that the others (on TIME's list) are asking, 'Who is this unknown Cuban blogger who is with us?'"

She is unknown no longer.

Just ask the dictatorship blocking her from receiving any greater acclaim.

UPDATED, 10:25 p.m. EDT

It looks like Sánchez won't be getting her white card.

"It's another way to remind us that we are like little children who need to get our parents' permission to leave the house," she told AFP.

This is not a surprise. Recall that the government similiarly denied permisson for the Damas De Blanco to travel to Europe a few years ago to accept the European Union's top human rights prize.

A mother and son reunion, Part 2

Since Sunday is Mother's Day, it is worth recognizing how Cuban women are standing up for their sons wrongfully imprisoned in the Castro gulag.

Former political prisoner Francisco Chaviano González of the Liberal Union of Cuba, reports that Gregoria Corrales, 66, and Gladis Farah, 68, denounced an apparent recent increase in violence and other abuses by prison guards against their sons, political prisoners Luís Campos Corrales and Lázaro Alejandro García Farah, respectively. They have been denied adequate medical care, and have been subject to unprovoked beatings and other "humilating acts," Chaviano reports.

Based on other such reports they have heard from the families of other prisoners, the women concluded what is happening to their sons is part of a larger nationwide abuse of prisoners.

Earlier, "A mother and son reunion."

A mother and son reunion

Dama De Blanco Reina Luisa Tamayo Danger vows she will end a hunger strike only when she is allowed to visit her son, political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

Tamayo started her protest after police on April 27 arrested her at a Havana bus terminal and drove her to a local police station. There, they ridiculed her and confiscated some milk, crackers and other items she had hoped to take to her son in prison in Holguín. They also fined her 60 pesos for the alleged crime of "hoarding."

Following his mother's example, Zapata, serving a 14-year sentence handed down in 2003, has also started a hunger strike.