Uncommon Sense

Damas De Blanco: A Tribute

Via Miscelaneas de Cuba, a tribute to Cuba's "Ladies In White."

Activist sentenced to 2 years in prison

Deisy Talavera López, who was arrested Jan. 31 after she put up at poster on her home's front door demanding the release of Cuban political prisoners, was sentenced earlier this month to 2 years in prison, according to Payo Libre.

Talavera, a member of the Marta Abreu Feminist Movement, was convicted of the supposed crimes of "attacking" and "disrespect." She is currently being held at the Belloté women's prison.

To learn more about her, read my Political Prisoner of the Week profile, as well as this update.

Ridiculous quote of the day

"This decision was not undertaken because of pressure, but as a sovereign act in line with the humanitarian and ethical conduct that has characterized the Cuban revolution from the start." (emphasis added)
— Cuban dictator Raúl Castro, explaining the decision to commute most death sentences to 30 years to life in prison.

(Not covered by the reprieve is the case of what Reuters described as "a Cuban American charged with murder during an attempt at armed infiltration of the island." The story and other accounts didn't mention any names but they probably are referring to Humberto Eladio Real Suarez, who with six other exiles infiltrated the island in 1994. He was sentenced to death after being convicted of killing a guard; the others got 30 years in prison.

For more on how Cuba has used the death penalty, read here.)

Political prisoner released from jail

Small victories, especially in Cuba, are always worth celebrating, so it was a huge relief to learn that dissident Julián Antonio Monés Borrero had won an early release from prison because of his poor health.

Monés, president of the Miguel Valdés Tamayo Human Rights Movement, had gone on a hunger strike after prison officials had told him he wouldn't be released until September, and not in July as he had originally thought. An Interior Minister official agreed to release Monés in exchange for an end to the protest — although Monés made clear he remained opposed to the Castro dictatorship.

Independent journalist María Antonia Hidalgo Mir has more at Payo Libre.

Notes from the gulag, 4/28/08

Here's further proof that dictator Raúl Castro's "reforms" have yet to reach his gulag:

— Political prisoner Pablo Pacheco Ávila refused to eat prison meals from April 16 to April 21, because they did not meet the medically prescribed requirements for his diet. Pacheco, an independent journalist imprisoned during the "black spring" of 2003, suffers from a variety of digestive and other ailments.

— Cubans may now be able to buy cell phones and microwave ovens, but in the gulag there's not even a guarantee that your prison cell will have a light bulb. In fact, guards took away political prisoner's Randy Cabrera Mayor's light bulb, telling him he could have it back if he developed a "communist attitude."

— Human rights activist Dr. Darsi Ferrer reports that more than 100 prisoners at the Combinado de Sandino prison in Piñar del Rio fell ill with diarrhea and vomiting blamed on a batch of possibly spoiled pasta they ate earlier this month.

— Prisoners at Ariza II prison in Cienfuegos refused to eat April 23, to protest the "smelly" condition of the prison's food.

— The same day, at the same prison, guards beat prisoner Leonardo Mangarica Martínez after he had the audacity to request medical treatment.

— A few days earlier, two prisoners — Emilio Díaz Borrell and David García López — were transferred from Ariza II prison to Ariza I prison after they had the audacity to request medical treatment. Díaz is recovering from surgery to his testicles, and García is suffering from dermatitis over his whole body.

— Prisoner Edgar Rodriguez Pozo was beaten and thrown into a punishment cell at the Villa Clara Youth Prison, after he tossed from his cell handmade posters declaring "Down With Communism," "Down With Fidel" and "Down With Raúl."

— At Nieves Morejón prison, in Sancti Spíritus, it has been months since prisoners have received any mail from family and friends.

— Former political prisoner Abel López Pérez, who had been released on medical parole, was returned to prison on April 22. A human rights activist, López had been sentenced in November 2005 to 3 years in prison for "disrespecting" Fidel Castro.

— In Cuban prisons, 27-year-old inmates like Luis González Díaz die from heart attacks.

Please pray for these and other victims imprisoned in Raúl Castro's hell.

Young Cubans demand change

A Cuban police officer threatened a group of young people with a trip to jail if they did not remove their white wristbands proclaiming CAMBIO, or "change." According to independent journalist Carlos B. Lazo, many young Cubans can be found wearing the bracelets, despite the challenge — or maybe because of the challenge — to the dictatorship that it implies.

Get your CAMBIO bracelets here.

They dance alone

Radio Martí reports that the Damas De Blanco ("Ladies In White") today resumed their weekly demonstration on behalf of their imprisoned husbands, fathers, sons and brothers, less than a week after 10 women were roughed up and arrested by the police and a Castroite mob.

Unlike what happened April 21, the women were left alone as they marched in silence down Fifth Avenue in Havana.

Sting didn't intend it for them, but about two decades ago he penned the perfect tribute to these very brave women.

Jorge Alberto Liriano Linares, Political Prisoner of the Week, 4/27/08 (UPDATED)

UPDATED, Aug. 13, 2013 - Jorge Liriano was released from prison on Aug. 13, 2013.

UPDATED, Nov. 24, 2011 — Jorge Liriano was returned to prison after his parole was revoked.

UPDATED, April 7, 2011 — Jorge Liriano was released from prison on March 25, 2011.

|———|

I don't know what kind of work Jorge Alberto Liriano Linares did before he landed in a Cuban prison. Or what "crime" he committed or how long he has been jailed. Punch his name into Google and no such biographical information is found; his name doesn't even show up on lists of Cuban political prisoners.

In prison, however, Liriano, a member of the Christian Democratic Party and Pedro Luis Boitel Political Prisoner organization, has distinguished himself as a journalist, or more precisely, a witness to the horrors of the Castro gulag. He doesn't report on what is happening to him, only to what is happening to his fellow prisoners. Punch his name into Google and what you will find are numerous accounts of life and death in the Castro gulag, with Liriano as the primary source.

Most recently, Liriano reported on an upswing in violence by a "death squad" of guards towards inmates at the Kilo 7 prison in Camagüey. In March, "32 inmates were victims of savage beatings and terrifying torture, most with injuries to the head," Liriano said.

Liriano also describes how some prisoners were stripped of their clothes and "crucified" by being handcuffed to the bars of their cells for three days without food or water.

"This is the cruel, unusual fate of prisoners confined in more than 200 prisons and forced labor camps sustained by the island's regime, due to the hostile policy of the government, an authoritarian government that for half a century in power has recognized in theory the rights of the people, but does not guarantee the protection and implementation thereof. That is why in the Kilo 7 prison thousands of prisoners ... areterrified and living with the permanent anguish of trying to survive without being beaten, tortured or killed unjustly " Liriano said.

A good site for keeping up with Liriano's reports is Martha Beatriz Roque's blog.

One of the surest indicators of the repressive nature of the Castro regime is the jailing of several hundred 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.

Cuban lawyers stand up for their own

Rolando Jiménez Pozada

Lawyers are the butt of many jokes, and sometimes the scorn is justified.

But never forget that is the lawyers — the good ones, to be specific — that ensure justice is served, and that the rights of the people are protected.

So that's why it is no surprise that the Cuban dictatorship, which has no sense of right and wrong, would reserve one of its greatest injustices for a member of the bar, political prisoner Rolando Jiménez Pozada.

Jiménez was arrested April 25, 1993, and after delays and other dirty dealing, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison because of his opposition to the dictatorship.

To mark the the 5-year anniversary of his arrest, a group of Cuban lawyers, in both Cuba and the United States, on Friday issued a statement of support for Jiménez, noting the many instances in which his right to due process were violated.

He didn't even get the chance to represent himself, as he was banned from the courtroom for his own trial! And when it came time for sentencing, the court gave him a sentence twice as long as prosecutors had sought!

In prison, Jiménez, a who used to work as a prosecutor of drug crimes, has been placed with common criminals, some of whom he sent to jail. They have taken many advantages to exact their revenge.

"(W)e demand for him, as well as for all the other Cuban political prisoners, the solidarity of lawyers and of all men and women of good will throughout the world," the lawyers' statement reads.

I often ask myself what I can do from the United States on behalf of Cuban political prisoners and other dissidents. As a journalist and as a Cuban, I think I have found my calling. I've also come to realize that it is within all of us — even lawyers — to look within and step up on behalf of others struggling for liberty and for justice, wherever that fight is being fought.

And that's no joke.

Read the whole statement, in English here; and en español, aquí.

'Socially dangerous' journalist threatened with jail

Bumper stickers declaring, "CAMBIO," recently appeared in the town of Manatí, in Las Tunas province, so who could the Cuban dictatorship blame?

How about an independent journalist? They are nothing but troublemakers, and there is no bigger trouble for the dictatorship than the people demanding change for Cuba, and not being afraid to go public with their demands.

Blame a journalist is exactly what the police did, catching, threatening and eventually releasing Maiky Martorell Mayán on April 18, according to a report from journalist and human rights activist Tania Maceda Guerra, posted at Payo Libre.

Police drove Martorell, 34, to a police station, took his fingerprints and read him the riot act — or more specifically, the law under which troublemaking patriotic Cubans like Martorell can be prosecuted for being a "social danger," which can carry a prison term of up to 4 years.

Obviously, real CAMBIO has yet to come to Cuba.

Get your own CAMBIO stickers — and wristbands, T-shirts, etc. — here.