"We're just following orders from Havana."
Or with some similar pass-the-buck excuse, the warden at the Nieves Morejón provincial prison in Trinidad, Sancti Spíritus, explained to Nélida Lima Conde why her husband, political prisoner Jorge Ramírez Calderón, was being permanently held in a tiny punishment cell. And why for five days recently he didn't have any access to sunlight. And when he did get to go outside, his hands were shackled.
"We're just following orders from Havana."
Fortunately, that will be no excuse when justice finally comes to Cuba.
Ramírez, a member of the Frank País Democratic Movement, was arrested last month and sentenced to 2 years in prison for the supposed crime of "disrespecting authority."
Elsewhere in the gulag:
— Blas Giraldo Reyes Rodríguez, who was imprisoned during the "black spring" of 2003, was transferred Aug. 20 to a hospital in Sancti Spíritus, suffering from symptoms related possibly to onset diabetes. In the previous 10 days, he had lost about 15 pounds, according to a Payo Libre report. Reyes, 53, also suffers from hypertension, arthritis, chronic gastritis, a hardened prostate and hemorrhoids.
— Political prisoner Roberley Villalobos Torres has started a hunger strike, to protest being denied adequate medical treatment for more than six months for pulmonary emphysema.
— It has been more than two weeks since Melba Santana Ariz has heard from her husband, the political prisoner Alfredo Rodolfo Domínguez Batista, one of a handful of prisoners who recently ended a hunger strike at Holguín Provincial Prison to demand greater respect for their human rights. Another of the protesters, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, was recently assaulted by a common prisoner, on orders from the prison warden, according to a Payo Libre report.
— The ringleader of the Holguín protesters, the imprisoned journalist Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta, apparently is ready to start a new hunger strike.
— Political prisoners Lázaro Alejandro García Farah and Armando Alcántara Clavijo were left battered and bruised after they were assaulted by guards at the Boniato prison in Santiago de Cuba, according to a Payo Libre report. The attack apparently was punishment because they had refused to participate in a political activity organized by the prison warden.
— Political prisoner Juan Bermúdez Toranzo was transferred to another prison this week, in an apparent attempt to silence his criticisms of the Castro gulag.
— An organization of independent Cuban lawyers has again expressed its support of and solidarity with and concern for their colleague, political prisoner Rolando Jiménez Pozada.
— Since early July when he was released from a military hospital, political prisoner Nelson Alberto Aguiar Ramírez has received neither adequate food or medicine, according to a report posted at Miscelaneas de Cuba.
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