Uncommon Sense

Arroz Con Frijoles, 4/26/07

Like a bowl of fresh rice and beans, these items are worth your time:

— Cuban Democratic Directorate reports on the release of political prisoner Jorge Luis García Pérez, also know as “Antúnez." According to the Directorate, Antúnez said soon after he arrived back at his home:

“The road has been difficult, but the airs of liberty are now discernable on the horizon. I am even more committed to this struggle and more committed to the cause for which I was imprisoned. My body, heart and soul will always be at the service of Cuba. No person or thing will make us yield."

To watch a television interview with Antúnez after he was released, go here.

— Blogger Luis M. Garcia, in this post, and this one, too, again demonstrates how he always cuts to the chase, and why he always is a must-read if you're trying to understand what is going on in Havana.

— Blogger El Guasano pays tributes to one of Europe's most stalwart supporters of Cuban liberty, former Czech president Vaclav Havel. Ziva at Blog for Cuba, has more on Havel, too.

Granma couldn't have said it better

From the Associated Press, whose reporters in Cuba seem to be increasingly drawing their cues from government press releases or the front pages of Granma:

By Will Weissert The Associated Press

HAVANA -- Fidel Castro may be ailing, but he's a living example of something Cubans take pride in -- an average life expectancy roughly similar to that of the United States.

They ascribe it to free medical care, a mild climate and a low-stress Caribbean lifestyle, which they believe make up for the hardships and shortages they suffer.

"Sometimes you have all you want to eat and sometimes you don't," said Raquel Naring, a 70-year-old retired gas-station attendant. "But there aren't elderly people sleeping on the street like other places."

Perhaps not, but too many Cubans, young and old, are housed like animals in the country's prisons because they dared to challenge a lack of liberty that no amount of free health care or good weather can ever replace. That, and not that many Cubans live to be very old men and women — my Cuban abuela is 81 and she has been in the United States for more than 45 years, so Castro doesn't get the credit — is by which Cuba should be judged.

But whether it's the tropical breezes or just plain cowardice, too many foreign reporters, like the AP's Weissert, have failed to tell that story and instead and allowed themselves to become travel writers for the revolution.

Prisoners are released, not freed (UPDATED)

The Associated Press has the story on the reported release from prison of six Cuban dissidents — Lazaro Alonso Roman, Manuel Perez Soria, Elio Enrique Chavez Ramon, Jose Diaz Silva, Emilio Leyva Perez and Dulian Ramirez Ballester — who have completed sentences of 2 to 4 years in prison each. Earlier, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, known as "Antunez," had been released after serving his full 17-year term plus a little more than a month more for good measures.

The releases are good news, for the prisoners and their families. But in an e-mail, dissident leader Marta Beatriz Roque cautions against reading much into the release.

And that goes especially for the Spanish government, which Roque said might be tempted to argue that its recent appeasement of Havana might somehow have lead to the releases.

The government "hasn't liberated anyone," Roque wrote. "All they did was complete their sentences."

Roque continued: "We must not be deceived by this trick to make it seem as if they are releasing prisoners. ... You know the Cuban government has a virtual language that it uses to confuse anyone it can confuse."

For the whole e-mail, in Spanish, read below the fold.

(H/T for the e-mail to Stefania.)

UPDATED, 5:21 a.m. EDT, April 25, 2007

Payo Libre has more details about the prisoners who were released, and reminds that at least one more, Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez, completes his sentence soon.

Justice, Castro-style

The Miami Herald this morning provides a useful roundup on the secret trials of two dissidents, Oscar Sanchez and Rolando Jimenez, and the release Sunday of Jorge Luís García Pérez, known as Antúnez.

The Herald reports:

A Cuban dissident was sentenced to 12 years in prison in the second secret trial in less than a week, while a third government opponent was freed after completing a 17-year sentence.

Lawyer Rolando Jiménez Posada's 12-year sentence came as one of the island's longest-serving political prisoners, Jorge Luís García Pérez, known as Antúnez, was released after serving a sentence marked by hunger strikes, allegations of beatings and a bold escape.

Last week, independent journalist Oscar Sánchez Madan was sentenced to four years in prison, after being arrested, tried and convicted all in the same day -- and also without a defense lawyer present.

''Those kinds of things only happen with an order from up top,'' said Manuel Vázquez Portal, a former political prisoner who now lives in South Florida. ``What I think is that after Fidel Castro's apparent recovery [from intestinal surgery] the government feels reborn and is taking measures in the name of that recovery.

''There's quite a contrast in having two secret trials in one week, which show a tightening of political repressiveness, and this good news about Antúnez,'' said Elizardo Sánchez, who heads the illegal but tolerated Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

''This is a step back to the early days of the revolution, when there were summary trials and executions,'' Sánchez said in a phone interview from Havana.

Jiménez, 36, is a lawyer who ran the Human Rights Center on the Isle of Youth. After hanging a sign outside his home in the town of Nueva Gerona that quoted Jose Martí daring people to think independently, he was arrested in the spring of 2003 and held without trial for four years.

Sánchez said Monday he just learned that Jiménez was tried April 6 on charges of ''disrespecting'' leader Fidel Castro, revealing state secrets and illegally printing and writing anti-government posters and graffiti.

The family was not notified of his trial date, and when Jiménez protested the lack of defense counsel, he was tossed out of the courtroom and not allowed to represent himself, Sánchez added.

''We're not just talking about a closed-door trial; we're talking about a secret trial,'' he said. ``In my 20 years doing this kind of work, I can tell you I have seen very, very few secret trials. I have been tried twice, and both times I had my family and a lawyer -- a lawyer who works for the state and could do nothing, but there he was, representing me.''

Vázquez said he believes secret trials have been taking place all along, and that it's just now that human rights groups are learning of them.

'They're trying to say: `Not only are we not going to release political prisoners, but we're going to put a few more in jail, and there's nothing you can do about it.' ''

The story didn't include as much about Antúnez, just a few words that surely will inspire those struggling for Cuban liberty.

"The path has been hard, but already the air of freedom is barely visible on the horizon,'' Antúnez said in a statement released by the Cuban Democratic Directorate, an anti-Castro exile organization. ``I am more committed to the struggle, I am more committed to the cause for which I was sent to prison. My body, soul and heart will always be at the service of Cuba and my people.''

"Nothing or nobody will make us waver.''

While jailed, he founded a political prisoner movement named after Luis Boitel, a dissident who died in 1972 of a hunger strike he began when he wasn't released after serving his sentence. Antúnez also penned a jailhouse memoir, Boitel Lives, published in Argentina.

''He's very brave,'' said Janisset Rivero, executive director of the Democratic Directorate. ``I spoke to him yesterday. The first thing he said was: `There are a lot of people suffering in prison, and we have to get them out.'''

For a more extensive interview with Antúnez, in Spanish, read El Nuevo Herald.

The dictatorship is deluded if after imprisoning and brutalizing Antúnez for 17 years, it thinks it has broken him.

"Jail made me analyze and understand the struggle and to mature politically," Antúnez told El Nuevo Herald. "Today I can say that I am a more receptive man, more pluralistic, more democratic, with more faith in the cause, which I defend without fear, ready to even return to prison if neccessary."

Antúnez "will fight"

Both the Associated Press and Reuters on Monday reported on the release of Cuban political prisoner Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antúnez," who on Sunday was released from prison after serving more than 17 years.

The best part in either story is a quote from independent journalist Guillermo Fariñas, who like Antúnez is deserving of the world's honor and resepect because of their commitment to Cuban liberty.

Fariñas, of Antúnez, told Reuters: "He said he will fight for the release of other political detainees."

Others in the Cuban opposition also applauded Antúnez's release.

"Although in poor health, he leaves prison without abandoning the principles that made him a symbol of the peaceful resistance in favor of human rights," Pedro López, president of the First National Democratic Party, said in a statement.

Few things should scare the dictatorship more than that.

Jailed lawyer gets 12-year sentence

Rolando Jimenez Pozada

Rolando Jimenez Pozada, 37, a dissident lawyer in jail since April 2003, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison, according to reports, both in English and in Spanish.

His crime?

In part, exhibiting disrespect for Fidel Castro, as if that hijo de puta deserves anything resembling it.

Reuters reports:

HAVANA (Reuters) - A Cuban dissident who wrote "Down with Fidel Castro" and other opposition slogans on walls of public buildings was sentenced to 12 years in jail, a human rights group said on Monday.

Rolando Jimenez had been held without charges in a jail on the Island of Youth off Cuba's southern coast since his arrest in March 2003, the Cuban Commission for Human Rights said.

Amnesty International declared Jimenez a prisoner of conscience in 2004.

Jimenez, a 36-year-old lawyer, was not allowed to defend himself in court and was sentenced in a secret trial to 12 years for disrespecting the Cuban leader and divulging secrets of the state security police, the rights group said.

Veteran rights activist Elizardo Sanchez, who heads the illegal but tolerated commission, said Jimenez was the second dissident to be tried secretly this month by Cuba's communist authorities.

"This is a clear sign than they are getting tough on dissident activity again," Sanchez said.

Dissident journalist Oscar Sanchez, who reported for a Miami-based Web site called CubaNet, was arrested at his home April 13 and sentenced to four years in jail on a charge of "social dangerousness," he said.

He was not allowed a lawyer and his family was barred from attending the brief trial in the town of Matanzas, unlike previous cases of dissident trials, Sanchez said.

Jimenez is a former Uncommon Sense Political Prisoner of the Week.

No word whether The Police have gotten word about Jimenez, via a message in a bottle or any other form of communication.

(H/T to Babalú.)

BREAKING NEWS: Political prisoner Antúnez is released

Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez"

Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez," locked in Cuban prisons for more than 17 years, was released early this morning, according to a story posted at Payo Libre.

Family members were hopeful that Antúnez, one of the most prominent political prisoners in Fidel Castro's gulag, would soon be released, as he had completed his sentenced on March 15 and had recently been transferred to another prison.

In prison, Antúnez, 42, had proven himself a leader, standing up against the dictatorship to protect his dignity, and that of other prisoners, and for the cause of liberty. He is suffering from poor health, but after what we can expect will be a period of rest of recuperation, do not be surprised if Antúnez is again on the front lines on struggle for freedom.

No Amnesty for Sting

For some in the British press, The Police's upcoming concert in Havana is a glaring example of hypocrisy, and it seems as if Sting's old buddies at Amnesty International may agree.

From the Telegraph's Spy column, April 14:

Hypocrisy is a regular pitfall for the worthy modern pop star - who could forget Mick Jagger's tactless visit to freedom-loving Burma last year? - and it now seems that 1980s rockers The Police have also wandered into this perilous territory.

The re-formed group has received an invitation from the Cuban government to perform on the island in December, Spy hears, and the band has accepted.

The invitation stems from a recent visit to Havana over the 2006 Christmas holiday by Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler.

And yet it seems odd that Sting, a vocal member of Amnesty International - "I lend my voice in support of Amnesty International so that others now silenced may soon be free to sing theirs" - would be so ready and willing to accept the invitation from a government that, in the words of his beloved organisation, imposes "severe restrictions on freedom of expression and association".

While Amnesty refused to comment specifically on the band's decision, the organisation makes its views quite clear. "People are locked up in Cuba for expressing their views," says a spokesman when I call.

"A number of journalists, teachers and human rights activists are in prison. Amnesty has been campaigning against these violations for 40 years."

Retired but still working

When not writing op-ed pieces or greeting visiting dignitatries, dictator-for-who-knows-how-long Fidel Castro charms the ladies, and creeps the rest of us, out at one of yanquis' the citadels of capitalism.

(H/T to La Contra Revolucion.)

The Sigler brothers, Political Prisoners of the Week, 4/22/07 (UPDATED)

Ariel Sigler

Guido Sigler

UPDATED, June 12, 2010 — Ariel Sigler Amaya was released from prison June 12, 2010.

If the struggle for Cuban liberty has a "first family," it might be the Sigler Amaya family. God knows the family has paid a high price for its brave efforts.

During the "black spring" of 2003, three brothers — Ariel, Guido and Miguel Sigler Amaya — were arrested. Miguel, now 45, was released after serving a 26-month jail sentence. But his brothers, Ariel, 45, and Guido, 53, are still in the gulag, serving sentences of 25 and 20 years, respectively, because of their opposition to the dictatorship. After his release, Miguel was able to move to the United States. Another brother, Juan Francisco, was almost killed last year as he rode his bike to work by motorists who more than made their intentions clear.

Before 2003, the brothers had been arrested numerous times. For example, in July 2002, Miguel, Guido and Ariel, were arrested for trying to commemorate the "13th of March" tugboat massacre.

Cuba Archive has more about the family, from a 2006 report:

The Sigler Amaya family, founders of the dissident group Movimiento Independiente Opción Alternativa, has been subjected to violent attacks, reprisals, and harassment for years. Just last week, the family home was subject to a massive act of repudiation organized by the government and Juan Francisco faced an act of repudiation, with physical violence, at his workplace, were he labors in agriculture. He declares: “My life has become a living hell. Our situation — mine and my family’s — is extremely dangerous. But, I will not leave the country, they know it, and for that reason I hold them responsible for anything that happens to me or my family.”

One of the surest indicators of the repressive nature of the Castro regime is the jailing of more than 300 political prisoners. To illustrate that reality, Uncommon Sense each week profiles one prisoner. There also is a Political Prisoner archive on the left 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.