Uncommon Sense

103 Cuban dissidents arrested in August, says independent news agency

The Castro dictatorship in August arrested at least 103 Cuban dissidents, the highest monthly count since April, according to information compiled by the incomparable CIHPRESS news agency.

That brought the yearly total to 861.

The arrests in August, as well as those in the prior month, are instructive in that they occurred at the same time the dictatorship was receiving attention for releasing and expelling into exile in Spain some two dozen dissidents imprisoned since the "black spring" of 2003. Not wanting to waste any jail space, the regime moved to stock up on political prisoners.

If you pay close attention, you'll see that nothing has changed in Cuba.

Most of those arrested were released after a few hours or a few days of detention, but not before the government delivered its message: Give up your work against the revolution or you will face harsher punishment.

But the August activity includes the arrest of five activists in eastern Cuba and of three dissidents who were carrying out a protest on the steps of the University of Havana. They all remain in jail, facing charges of "public disorder," or other such nonsense.

To see the list of 103 names and any available information about what exactly happened to them, go here.

University of Havana protesters transferred to prisons (UPDATED)

Three Cuban dissidents arrested Aug. 16 during a protest on the steps of the University of Havana have been transferred to different prisons, according to a report posted at Misceláneas de Cuba.

The case of Michel Iroy Rodríguez Ruiz, Luís Enrique Labrador and Eduardo Pérez Flores — along with the recent arrests of five dissidents in eastern Cuba — is the most recent evidence that despite its release of some dozen members of the "Group of 75" prisoners, the Castro dictatorship has not changed.

Meanwhile, Rodríguez, Labrador and Pérez are increasingly in poor health because of hunger strikes they started after their arrests. They have been moved to some of the Castro gulag's worst hellholes, but so far no formal charges have been filed against them.

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Before his transfer, Luís Enrique Labrador was beaten and seriously injured by police, according to a report from independent journalist Katia Sonia Martín Véliz, published by the Cuban Independence and Democracy Party.

Read more about the prisoners, here.

To demand his rights, Cuban political prisoner sews his mouth shut

The extent to which some Cuban political prisoners go to demand that their human rights be respected reveals the courage of the prisoner, and the vile nature of those who hold them in the Castro gulag.

Case in point: Political prisoner Alfredo Álvarez Leyva, who has not only started a hunger strike but has gone a step further by taking a wire and sewing his mouth shut, according to a Radio Martí report.

An inmate at El Típico Nuevo prison in Las Tunas, Álvarez is protesting the poor living conditions in the jail, including the poor amount and quality of the food.

I could not determine why Álvarez, a member of the Pedro Luis Boitel Resistance Movement, is in prison, except that this is not his first stint in a Cuban prison.

Debunking the myth of Che Guevara

The guy in this video does it brilliantly:

21 'Group of 75' prisoners remain in Cuban prisons

After all the hubbub about Cuba agreeing to release 52 political prisoners in jail since the "black spring" crackdown of March-April 2003, there still remain in prisons across the island 21 members of the Group of 75.

Here is the list, and the name of the prison where they are being held:

• José Daniel Ferrer (Las Tunas, Típico Viejo).
• Diosdado Glez Marrero, Guido Sigler ( Matanzas, Aguica).
• Nelson Molinet, Fidel Suárez Ruiz, Horacio Julio Piña, Eduardo Díaz Fleitas  (Pinar del Rio).
• Pedro Argüelles, Félix Navarro (Canaleta, Ciego de Ávila).
• Iván Fdez Carrillo, Librado Linares, ( Vlilla Clara, distintas prisiones.) Arnaldo Ramos ( Holguín).
• Rolando Jiménez Pozada, (Isla de La Juventud)
• Alfredo Felipe Fuentes, Miguel Galbán, Héctor Raúl Valle (Provincia La Habana, Guanajay)
• Luis Enrique Ferrer. (Santiago de Cuba).
• José Miguel Martínez (La Habana, Quivicán)
• Oscar Elías Biscet, Angel Moya, Héctor Maseda (La Habana, Combinado del Este )

To learn more about each one, click on their names on the right sidebar.

Also, as many as 10 of those still in prison have refused to agree to take exile in Spain in exchange for their release, as apparently required by the deal between Spain, the Catholic Church and the Castro dictatorship. They include:

• Pedro Argüelles
• Eduardo Fleitas
• Angel Moya
• Oscar Biscet
• José Daniel Ferrer
  
• Luis Enrique Ferrer

H/T for the update to my friend Maria Benjumea.)

Julián Antonio Monet Borrero, Cuban Political Prisoner of the Week, 8/29/10 (UPDATED x 2)

Julián Antonio Monet Borrero

UPDATED, Sept. 3, 2010 — Monet is being released, albeit with conditions. He tells Radio Marti he can travel only between his home and his work. His hunger strike is over.

UPDATED, Sept. 1, 2010 — Monet tells a Cuban independent journalist that officials have told him he will be released Sept. 3 but adds he will continue his hunger strike until he is home with his family.

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Orlando Zapata Tamayo started his hunger strike, and subsequently died earlier this year so that other Cuban political prisoners, like Julián Antonio Monet Borrero, wouldn't have to, so that his sacrifice would change how political prisoners — and for that, all Cubans — are treated by the Castro dictatorship.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the regime that has enslaved and murdered Cubans for more than 51 years, is not persuaded by actions of courage and selflessness like Zapata's.

The attention and scrutiny brought on Havana by Zapata's death has forced some action by the dictatorship, like the actual or promised release of 52 prisoners of conscience.

But it has not changed the dictatorship nor how it treats the Cuban people — especially those with the courage of Orlando Zapata Tamayo and Julián Antonio Monet Borrero.

So that is why Monet, who has been on his own hunger strike since July 2 to demand his release from prison, may be near death.

It has been written on this blog and elsewhere that Zapata's death awakened an unprecedented awareness of the human rights situation, especially in the Castro gulag.

Well, now is the time for the world to show that awareness and step up on behalf of Julian Antonio Money Borrero in order to save his life.

Zapata is dead because of his protest, and the malignant neglect and indifference shown by his captors.

But he also was a victim of a world where most are asleep when it comes to the horrors of Castro's Cuba. Not enough people knew Zapata's name until it was too late to save his life.

That cannot happen again.

Julián Antonio Monet Borrero, and the cause of Cuban freedom, are depending on it.

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This is the second time Monet has been named the Prisoner of the Week. Read the earlier profile, which includes information about his background as an anti-Castro activist, here.

A video tribute to Cuban political prisoner Julian Antonio Monet

He has been on hunger strike since July 1, and as a result is very sick.

Please do not let him die without the world knowing his name, and without demanding that the Castro dictatorship meet his demand and release him.

The Castro double standard

The incomparable Cuban journalist and blogger Luis Felipe Rojas explains, in the context of the arrest of five democracy activists earlier this month in Baracoa, in eastern Cuba:

Photos / Luis Felipe Rojas

The Alianza Democrática Oriental (Eastern Democratic Alliance) energetically condemns the imminent arrests under a prosecution devoid of legal guarantees of five brave activists from Eastern Cuba. 

Néstor and Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina, Enyor Díaz Allen, Francisco Luis Manzanet Ortíz and Roberto González Pelegrín received non-written communication, that is, only verbally from the secret police, that they would be prosecuted for the supposed crime of public disorder, an action they did not commit at any time and which was actually carried out by the police in Baracoa themselves.    

This story surpasses the recent incident of 11 August, when Yordi García Fournier and Heriberto Liranza went to Baracoa to attend a session of the Foro Juvenil Cubano (Cuban Youth Forum), along with other activists and residents.  Immediately, the police detained García and Liranza and decided, without cause, to expel them from town; they were then notified that they were under ’deportees’ status and, by order of the high command, were barred from returning to Baracoa.  Their friends who witnessed the incident reacted without hesitation and demanded an explanation as to why the police themselves were violating citizens’ rights to move throughout the country and to meet with whomever they choose.  The response once again was, ‘you can’t come back here.’ 

The only method available to Cubans facing injustice is to protest in a peaceful manner, chant slogans, or display banners with demands, even if later they’re worked over by a good beating or thrown in jail.  That’s what the remaining activists did, only this time not in broad daylight nor in groups along the main avenue.  They went to Néstor’s and Rolando’s house and from the balcony of the third floor they displayed banners that demanded freedom of mobility, they chanted slogans such as ‘Long live human rights!’ and ‘Orlando Zapata was murdered!’ The trained mob soon appeared. From the ground-floor entrance of the building, kids, elderly, men and women in a tight crowd chanted slogans of praise for some guy named Fidel and some other guy named Raúl and said that the streets belonged to those two. No policeman made a single arrest, nor scolded the mob that, from the groundfloor of the building threw stones and bottles, shattering apartment windows.

There was a nighttime pause on the 11th but daybreak on the 12th was more turbulent. 

The protest activities from above and the aggressions from below continued.  Later came the detentions.  From the third floor the police brought down, in handcuffs, the five men who remained up there.  They raided a residence where a young girl, a pregnant woman, and an elderly woman had witnessed the entire spectacle and from which they were expelled for the 12 hours the police took to search the home.  They took whatever objects they pleased, including cell phones.   

As those who know well the brutality of the Cuban police can attest, the five activists were the victims of a disturbance brought about by the mobs at the service of the National Revolutionary Police in Baracoa and yet they are the accused.  International public opinion has been informed, as have organizations that monitor human rights on the island been informed that the judicial prosecution will be carried out against the five for the crime of “public disorder.”  All this, after a brutal wave of repression was conducted in the eastern region of the country between July and well into August resulting in more than 50 detentions and a fierce smear campaign by the government against the Alliance’s platform.

The possible sentencing of the five dissidents from Guantánamo confirms yet again the double standard policy assiduously practiced by the government as part of its greater foreign policy.  On one hand they release some dissidents from prison, on the other those who attempt to say ‘I disagree’ get shoved behind bars. (emphasis added)

Translated by: Yoyi el Monaguillo

3 protesters arrested today in Havana

Sara Fonseca

Cuban human rights activist Sara Martha Fonseca Quevedo refuses to back down against the Castro dictatorship, and for that she was arrested today for the second time in 10 days — and emerged as a new hero in the struggle against the Castro dictatorship.

Fonseca and two other activists, Eriberto Liranza Romero and Ermógenes Guerrero Gómez, were demonstrating for the release of eight other activists arrested at the University of Havana and in eastern Cuba last week, when police swept in and took them away. One report stated that Fonseca was literally dragged down a street by police.

Their whereabouts this evening were not known.

Fonseca had also been arrested last week at during the University of Havana protest Aug. 16, along with four other activists. Fonseca and one other detainee were released shortly afterward.

The other five political prisoners had been arrested after protests a week earlier in Baracoa, in far eastern Cuba, demanding the release of two other dissidents who had been arrested — Liranza and another man. Amnesty International this week called for the international community to take "urgent action" on their behalf.

Fonseca is a hero, not only because of her courage and willingness to take her protests against the Castro system to the streets. She is to be doubly admired because she does so on behalf of her fellow freedom fights.

Cuba needs more of its citizens to follow her example.

Cuban Democratic Directorate has more.

Amnesty International: 'Urgent action' needed in case of 5 Cuban political prisoners

Amnesty International calls for "urgent action" in the case of this week's Political Prisoners of the Week:

PRO-DEMOCRACY ACTIVISTS ARBITRARILY DETAINED

Five men, all members of a pro-democracy organization in Cuba have been detained in connection with their political beliefs and activities. They have been held by police since 12 August, and have not had access to a lawyer. It is unclear if they have been charged. They could be facing an unfair trial.

On 11 August, seven men, members of the organization Youth for Democracy (Jovenes por la Democracia), were holding a meeting at the home of one of their members, Nestor Rodríguez Lobaina, in the town of Baracoa, in Guantánamo province. Two of them, Yordis García Fournier and Eriberto Liranza Romero, went to find out about return tickets at the bus station, but were detained by police soon after leaving the house at around midday. They were held without charge until 16 August.

When the rest of the group at Nestor Rodríguez's home found out their two colleagues had been detained, they hung banners and posters outside the house protesting against their detention. Within a few hours, a group of supporters of the authorities had gathered outside the house, shouting insults and throwing stones, some of which hit members of Youth for Democracy. At around 3 pm, four more members of the organization arrived at the house. When they saw the mob outside the house, they decided to go in through the back door. There, they were questioned by state security agents and taken into detention. They were released two days later, on 13 August.

On 12 August, state security officials entered the house and detained all five members of Youth for Democracy who were there: Nestor Rodríguez Lobainaand his brother Rolando, Enyor Díaz Allen, Roberto González Pelegrín and Francisco Manzanet. They are still in detention and have not had access to a lawyer. They have been told that they will be charged with "public disorder" (“desorden público”), but it is not clear if charges have yet been filed against them. Once they are charged, they could be tried within hours. It appears their detention is politically motivated.

Roberto González Pelegrín and Francisco Manzanethave been on hunger strike since 12 August in protest at their detention, and are held at the provincial hospital in Guantánamo. According to relatives of Nestor Rodríguez, at 7 am on 13 August, state security officials returned to the house and searched it, even though they did not have a warrant to do so. They confiscated items including books, laptops and mobile phones. They spent 12 hours in the house.

PLEASE WRITE IMMEDIATELY in Spanish or your own language:

• urging the government to release Nestor and Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina, Enyor Díaz Allen, Roberto González Pelegrín and Francisco Manzanet immediately and unconditionally, unless they are to be charged with an internationally recognized criminal offence and tried according to international standards for fair trial;

• calling on the authorities to cease the harassment, intimidation and persecution of citizens who seek to peacefully exercise their right to freedom of expression, assembly and association.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 06 OCTOBER 2010 TO:

Head of State and Government

Raúl Castro Ruz

Presidente

La Habana, Cuba

Fax: +53 7 8333085 (via Foreign Ministry); +1 2127791697 (via Cuban Mission to UN)

Email: cuba@un.int (c/o Cuban Mission to UN)
Salutation: Su Excelencia/Your Excellency

Interior Minister

General Abelardo Coloma Ibarra

Ministro del Interior y Prisiones

Ministerio del Interior, Plaza de la Revolución, La Habana, Cuba

Fax: +53 7 8333085 (via Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

+1 2127791697 (via Cuban Mission to UN)

Salutation: Su Excelencia/Your Excellency

Also send copies to diplomatic representatives of Cuba accredited to your country. Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date.

URGENT ACTION

PRO-DEMOCRACY ACTIVISTS ARBITRARILY DETAINED

ADditional Information

Freedom of assembly, association and expression in Cuba continues to be severely restricted and many arrests have taken place around commemorations of past events and demonstrations. The detentions last usually for few hours after which the detainee is released with a warning not to take part in any dissenting activities, or would otherwise face charges. Short term detention is commonly used by Cuban authorities as a method to intimidate citizens and to deter them from peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression, assembly and association.

For more information see:

- Restrictions on freedom of expression in Cuba, Report, Index Number: AMR 25/005/2010, 30 June 2010, at: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR25/005/2010/en

- Rock and repression in Cuba, Video, 7 July 2010, at: http://www.youtube.com/user/AmnestyInternational#p/f/3/3IaW7IHcPJc