Uncommon Sense

Prisoner blows whistle on thieving guard

If the Cuban people have no rights — and they don't — Cubans in the Castro gulag have less than zero.

Independent journalist Yoel Espinosa Medrano is reporting that political prisoner Miguel Díaz Bauza faces a disciplinary hearing after he complained about the quantity and the quality of the food prisoners are receiving in his cell block at the Villa Clara Youth Prison. According to Díaz, the guard in charge of the section is stealing the food to support three lovers.

Díaz already is serving a 25-year sentence handed down in 1994, so I am not sure what incentive he has to take his punishment like slave. But just the same, a dictatorship must have its ways if it is going to be a real dictatorship, like Cuba's.

For more about Díaz, a former Uncommon Sense Political Prisoner of the Week, read this.

Prisoners stand up for their comrades

Cuban political prisoners José Daniel Ferrer García and Alfredo Rodolfo Domínguez Batista, imprisoned since the "black spring" of March-April 2003, have their own problems and challenges. But that has not kept them from expressing their solidarity with fellow dissidents, in and out of the Castro gulag, engaged in their own battles with the dictatorship.

For example, Ferrer has placed in his cell at the Las Tunas provincial prison a sign declaring support for numerous prisoners and other activists currently on hunger strikes.

It is further evidence why Ferrer, Domínguez and all Cuban political prisoners are deserving of the title: Hero of Cuba.

Those listed on Ferrer's sign include Julián Antonio Moné Borrero, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Aurelio Antonio Morales Ayala, Isael Poveda Silva, Yordis García Fournier, Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antunez" and Idania Yanes Contreras.

Prisoner Hugo Prieto on hunger strike

Cuban political prisoners are not unarmed in their daily battle with the Castro dictatorship. Going against what at times must seem like an insurmountable evil, they resist and fight back with their honor and their dignity intact.

Hugo Damián Prieto Blanco is one such warrior.

Guards at the Combinado del Este prison in Havana on Tuesday brutally beat Prieto and tossed him naked into a punishment cell. Rather than succumb to his apparent fate — at best, more prison time on charges trumped up by his jailers; at worst, death — Prieto declared himself "plantado" against the dictatorship and started a hunger strike.

Prieto's protest had been in the works since the middle of the month. His wife told independent journalist Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez that during a conjugal visit Oct. 17, Prieto informed her he was going to start a protest because prison officials for three months had denied him access to sunlight, which had left him pale and suffering from bone pain. He also had contracted a cold worsened by the wet conditions in the prison. Guards were also trying to force Prieto to wear the uniform of a common prisoner — a tactic the dictatorship frequently uses to target political prisoners.

Prieto, a member of the Pro-Human Rights Party, was jailed on Aug. 6 and ordered to complete 7 months remaining on an earlier 4-year sentence for being a "pre-criminal social danger." Another political prisoner, Ernesto Castro Brito, told journalist Guerra that officials now also want to charge him with assault and "abuse of state property."

Read more about Prieto, a former Uncommon Sense Political Prisoner of the Week, here.

Ex-political prisoner: Castro is holding me hostage

Former Cuban political prisoner Omelio Lázaro Angulo Borrero has been admitted to a Camagüey hospital in critical condition, suffering from a tumor in his uretha and in need of surgery, according to a report posted on Payo Libre.

Angulo, a human rights activist, said his health was fine before 2002 when he was sentenced to 8 years in prison on a charge of "espionage." (Other Internet accounts report that Angulo was jailed in September 2003.) Despite Angulo's poor health — which apparently was bad enough for him to receive a medical parole — the Castro dictatorship has refused him permission to travel for medical treatment in Costa Rica, which has granted him a visa.

Angulo said he can only conclude that the Cuban government, which frequently denies its critics the right to travel overseas as retaliation for their activities, is holding him "hostage" in order to kill him.

Hirám González Torna, Cuban Political Prisoner of the Week, 10/26/08

Hirám González Torna

A characteristic of a communist tyranny is that the dictators work as hard to keep people in their country as they do to keep them out. Probably harder. The East Germans and the Soviets built the Berlin Wall to keep their slaves enslaved, not to keep out hordes of Westerners looking to enjoy what the communists had to offer.

Making it illegal, if not deadly, to leave without the dictatorship's approval is just another way the dictatorship keeps control.

Cuba doesn't have a wall, just an ocean, but that hasn't been enough to keep thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Cubans at home. So the Castro dictatorship has resorted over the years to prosecuting and imprisoning many Cubans who try to flee without permission but for some reason don't make it to the United States or other destination.

Again, to keep the fear, to keep the control.

In June 1990, Hirám González Torna, who was then 24, tried to escape but he didn't make it. The how and the where of his particular case were not available online, just some basic information: He was charged with illegal exit, piracy and evasion, and sentenced to 21 years in prison.

Not much has been reported about González, who will turn 43 next month, except that he has declared himself "plantado," or actively resistant to "re-education" and other attempts to break his will. In 2000, he went on a hunger strike to demand that he be transferred to a prison closer to his ailing mother. Prison officials retaliated by placing him a punishment cell.

That we do not know the details of what González did — a charge of "piracy" carries some ominous connotations, even when leveled by the Castro dictatorship — does not diminish the importance of his case. Not to excuse any violent acts González might have committed, but it is critical to remember the circumstances he was trying to escape and the desperation that might have inspired.

That he was prosecuted and tossed into the Castro gulag for 21 years is the best evidence of that.

One of the surest indicators of the repressive nature of the Castro regime is the jailing of 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 at [email protected]

For profiles of imprisoned Cuban journalists and related information, read the March 18 Project.

Family stands up for protesting prisoner

The mother, wife and daughter of Cuban political prisoner Julián Antonio Monés carried out a hunger strike in Revolution Square in Havana to draw attention to his case. Monés, who was released from prison earlier this year, was arrested in late September and immediately started a hunger strike that has left him critically ill.

Monés' family members started the protest Wednesday morning, and when security officials asked the reason for the demonstration, they were asked to visit a government prosecutor's office on Thursday morning to get an update on Monés' case.

His wife, Matilde Duportey Acosta, said if they did not get a sufficient response, she and her daughter and mother-in-law would return to Revolution Square to resume their protest.

Information about what happened Thursday was not available.

Cuban political prisoner released

Political activist Dioselis Blanco González was released from a prison work camp earlier this week, after serving more than 3 years for "disrespect" and for being a "pre-criminal social danger." Blanco, a member of the Máximo Gómez Báez National Civic Movement, had been sentenced in September 2005 to terms totaling 5 years.

Blanco, 36, reported from his home in Piñar del Rio that he was in good health.

Journalists under fire in Cuba

Independent journalists in Cuba — like Carlos Serpa Maceira, Félix Reyes Gutiérrez and Ismaris Salomón Carcaces — are doubly dangerous to the Castro dictatorship.

First off, most of them have a "bias" and are not afraid to show it: In addition to their work as journalists, many of them are also active as human rights or democracy activists, or maybe they also run a small independent library out of their home. They are committed to a free Cuba, and are not afraid to show it.

And secondly, Cuba's independent journalists have an indefatigable courage to report on the reality of life and misery in Cuba, and then to ensure the world knows the same. They cut through the propaganda of the state-run media and the ignorance and indifference of much of the foreign press, to tell the world of the real Cuba.

Independent journalists in Cuba, for how they speak truth to power — the No. 1 axiom of good journalists everywhere — are marked for oppression and repression, and sometimes worse. They know the risks they take, but they remain undaunted.

Europe forgets, but you don't have to

From the Associated Press:

Cuba and the European Union ended a five-year standoff on Thursday by signing an agreement that calls for EU members to send the island euro2 million (US$2.6 million) in immediate hurricane recovery aid and up to euro30 million (US$38.8 million) more in financing next year.

No surprises here.

Whenever given the chance, the Castro dictatorship will exploit the suffering of the Cuban people — this time, as caused by recent hurricanes — to bolster its position and to line its pockets.

And whenever given the chance, Europe, which has lifted all sanctions imposed during the "black spring" of March-April 2003, will betray the Cuban people. As part of the deal, at least as described by the Cuban foreign minister, Europe agreed to muzzle itself when it comes to human rights in Cuba.

No Cubans have been abandoned by Europe more than 56 political prisoners arrested during the "black spring" who remain in jail.

Read about them here.

Activists assaulted, arrested in Havana

Every day, there are reminders of the brutality of the Castro regime, and of its desperation ...

Eight Cuban dissidents, including former political prisoner Jorge Luis García Pérez “Antúnez,” were brutally assaulted and arrested Thursday morning as they marched through Havana on their way to a peaceful protest outside the Cuban justice ministry, according to the Cuban Democratic Directorate.

Many of those arrested suffered cuts and bruises; the most severely injured was Carlos Michael Morales Rodríguez, whose faces was left covered in blood from his beating, according to the Directorate's sources in Havana.

Others arrested and taken to a local police station were Idania Yanes Contreras, president of the Central Opposition Coalition; her husband Alcides Rivera Rodríguez; Jorge Luis Artiles Montiel; Antúnez's wife Iris Pérez Aguilera; Loreto Hernandez Garcia; and Alberto Acuña.

Antúnez, a leader of the Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoners organization, and Yanes have been on hunger strikes since Oct. 15 when a Castroite mob swarmed Yanes' home in Santa Clara to break up gathering of dissidents there. Several at the gathering, including an 8-year-old boy, were injured and/or arrested.