Unfortunately, and despite the best efforts of the dictatorship to commit its crimes against humanity in secret, there never is a lack of news about the suffering of political prisoners in the Castro gulag:
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Prisoner of conscience Diosdado Gonzalez Marrero is protesting overcrowding conditions at the Kilo 5½ prison in Piñar del Rio by sleeping on a concrete floor in a large room with 120 other prisoners, according to a report from independent journalist Félix Reyes Gutiérrez. Gonzalez, a democracy activist, is serving a 20-year sentence handed down during the "black spring" of March-April 2003.
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Lawyer Orlando Zapata Tamayo also was imprisoned during the "black spring." His mother reports that guards at the Holguín provincial prison recently delivered a brutal beating to her son, who is serving a 14-year sentence. During a recent visit, she noticed that her son had numerous bruises and had lot considerable weight. "This is not the first nor the only prison where my son has suffered physical abuse and inhuman treatment, because since the beginning of his unjust conviction prison authorities ... have continually attempted to break his spirit and make him desist from defending the rights of all Cubans," said Reina Tamayo Danger.
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Jesús Adolfo Reyes Sánchez told human rights activists that his wife, political prisoner María de los Ángeles Borrego Mir, has suffered beatings and other mistreatment by guards at the Manto Negro prison. Borrego, who in December 2005 was sentenced to 4 years in prison for being a "pre-criminal social danger," also is not receiving adequate medical care for nodules in the throat, stomatitis, acute hip problems, swelling in the feet and high blood pressure, according to her husband.
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An inmate at a prison in Villa Clara was brutally beaten and tossed into a punishment cell after he put up signs carrying anti-government slogans, according to a report from political prisoner Arturo Pérez Alejo.
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From the Cuba Sí prison in Holguín, political prisoner Osmany Espada Rodríguez complains that guards routinely violate prisoners' human rights. In his case, they have blocked him for four months from seeing a medical specialist.
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In Baracoa, in far eastern Cuba, prisoners from the Paso del Cuba prison are being forced to help build homes from the prison warden and one of his captains, according to a report citing a Cuban dissident. In return, the prisoners are getting a special lunch, a 3-day pass each month and a minimal salary.
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