Uncommon Sense

Cuban women to dictatorship: Make our money count

Belinda Salas and the other Cuban women in the Latin American Foundation of Rural Women are some of the bravest Cubans around. The dictatorship ignores their demands at their own peril.

The Associated Press reports:

HAVANA (AP) — A women's group presented thousands of signatures Thursday petitioning Cuba's parliament to close the gap in the communist country's dual economy, which pays state workers in Cuban pesos but offers basics like toilet paper in another currency that few can afford.

Four women wearing white "With the Same Money" T-shirts gathered outside the legislature and attempted to turn in proof of 10,000 new signatures which they said complemented 10,837 signatures they gave lawmakers a year ago.

Their leader, Belinda Sales, said legislative clerks refused to receive the new signatures, saying lawmakers were still studying last year's petition.

She said more than a thousand members of her Latin American Foundation of Rural Women collected signatures across Cuba over the past two years, and found wide support even though authorities repeatedly seized petitions.

"Because it does not include anything political, people aren't afraid to sign," she said. "Everyone who lives in Cuba wants to be paid in one currency and have that same currency meet all their needs."

Salas is also a damn fine journalist.

Police raid Cuban human rights office

Via CubaNet, we learn once again that the Castro dictatorship cannot handle the truth:

HAVANA, Cuba, November 17 (Tania Maceda Guerra / www.cubanet.org) - Political police agents closed the information center of the Cuban Human Rights Council office last week, according to the group's executive secretary, Juan Carlos González Leiva.

González said the government was trying to prevent the council from producing its year-end report of human rights violations in Cuba. He said the report would include more than 1,200 arrests of dissidents, the sentencing of 60 opponents of the government and the deaths of more than 70 prisoners.

He said the police destroyed equipment in the office during their raid November 12.

Castroism is bad for the stomach

Normando Hernández González

Everything about the Castro dictatorship during the past 50 years — the poverty, the tyranny, the absence of freedom — is enough to make you sick to your stomach. Everything about the so-called "revolution" and what it has brought to Cuba, is revolting.

So it is poetic justice, that Fidel Castro, the man most responsible for the sickness that bears his name, is decaying away from a bad stomach.

Unfortunately, too many of his captives, imprisoned for trying to make Cuba well, are in similar pain.

The sickness, the pain that imprisoned journalist Normando Hernández González is suffering is excruciating just to think about. Suffering from intestinal malabsorption syndrome and chronic colitis, Hernández has long bouts of constipation followed by longer bouts of diarrhea that have ravaged his body. According to his wife, Hernández, who was imprisoned during the "black spring" of 2003, currently weighs barely over 120 pounds.

Of course, the gulag is no place to be a sick man, especially if you are political prisoner. Denial of adequate medical care is just another way the dictatorship carries out the de facto death sentences that Hernández and other political prisoners are serving in Castro's dungeons.

Hernández's wife also recently reported that her husband has been suffering from an inflammation on his throat that leaves him feeling like he is drowning. He probably should have an ultrasound exam to determine the severity of the condition, but officials have not allowed one to be performed.

Notes from the gulag, 11/19/08

A few updates from the Castro gulag:

• Luis Ramón Cordero Naite was isolated from other prisoners in a punishment cell after he contracted bacterial conjuntivitis, or "pink eye." In the punishment cell, Cordero, who also suffers from a variety of other ailments, is forced to sleep on the floor.

• Political prisoner Arturo Suárez Ramos was threatened by guards at the Combinado del Este prison in Havana after he refused to wear the white uniform assigned to common criminals.

• Political prisoner Ernesto Duran Rodríguez has been placed in a special punishment regime at the Combinado de Guantánamo prison.

• Political prisoner Alfredo Domínguez Batista is being denied adequate medical care or a proper diet required by his condition.

• Political prisoner Pablo Pacheco Ávila also is being denied a proper diet.

• Political prisoner José Benito Menéndez del Valle was denied a copy of his medical history while in prison.

As always, I am indebted for these reports to Payo Libre and its correspondents on the island.

Cuban pastor faces 'human trafficking' charge

Via e-mail from Christian Solidarity Worldwide:

We are writing to request your urgent prayer and action on behalf of a Cuban pastor who has now spent six months in prison.

Pastor Omar Gude Pérez was detained in Camaguey on 22 May 2008 and subsequently charged with “Human Trafficking”. Following his imprisonment, government officials carried out a full inventory of his family’s home and threatened to confiscate their house and possessions. They have not yet followed through on these threats but the family, unsurprisingly, feels extremely vulnerable.

His wife, Kenia, is only allowed to visit her husband in prison once every 21 days. She has complained that she is harassed by the guards when she visits. As in similar cases, their two children, Omar, age 14, and Kelia, age 11, are not allowed to visit their father.

Pastor Gude Pérez‘s lawyer is working to get him released on bail, at least until he goes to trial; however, no trial date has yet been given.

While the pastor has been charged with taking money to help people leave the country illegally, these charges are denied by his family and other religious groups, in and outside of Cuba, who are familiar with the case. Pastor Gude Pérez, his family and their church report that they had been receiving threats from government officials for months prior to his detention. They believe that he has been targeted because of his position as one of three main leaders of the “Apostolic Reformation”. This non-denominational, non-political religious movement is active in evangelism and church growth. Without association to international denominational networks, the Apostolic Reformation is particularly vulnerable to harassment. Church leaders have reported that their phones are tapped, leaders are watched and threatened, and many church members have been threatened with loss of employment if they do not leave these churches.

Prisoner ends hunger strike after 45 days (UPDATED)

Cuban political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo, on hunger strike since Oct. 1, ended his protest Nov. 14 after he was transferred to his own cell at the Holguín provincial prison. Zapata had been demanding that he be transferred out of a prison cell block where common criminals — at the behest of prison officials, most likely — had been threatening his life.

Reina Luisa Tamayo Danger, who was allowed to see her son for 5 minutes, said Zapata had lost 64 pounds and was suffering from stomach pains and other effects of his hunger strike.

UPDATED, Nov. 20, 2008

Calling Zapata's protest a success, Cuban Democratic Directorate has more details.

Hunger strike details

Two of four Cuban political prisoners on lengthy hunger strikes dropped their protests after authorities said they would consider their demands, according to Cuban Democratic Directorate.

Julián Antonio Monés Borrero ended his protest Nov. 12 after officials set a trial date for Nov. 24 on charges that Monés had "assaulted" a communist thug who objected to his wearing of a T-shirt proclaiming CAMBIO, or "change." Monés started his hunger strike, which lasted 43 days, after he was arrested Sept. 30.

Another prisoner, Abel López Pérez, ended his hunger strike after officials said they would grant him parole and drop additional charges they had filed against him while in prison.

Two other political prisoners, Orlando Zapata Tamayo and Yordis García Fournier, are continuing with their hunger strikes.

Meanwhile, more than 200 dissidents across Cuba are taking turns fasting to show their support for their imprisoned compatriots. Read their names here.

Another weekend in Cuba ...

... another 10 peaceful dissidents arrested, for doing nothing more than singing the national anthem, praying for the release of political prisoners and otherwise demanding that human rights prevail on the island.

Cuban political prisoner ends hunger strike after 40 plus days

Julián Antonio Monés Borrero

Cuban political prisoner Julián Antonio Monés Borrero has ended a hunger strike he started to demand his release from jail.

Monés was arrested Sept. 30 in the city of Baracoa in far eastern Cuba after he got into a scuffle with a communist thug who objected to Monés' wearing of a T-shirt proclaiming CAMBIO, or "change." Monés, who previously was imprisoned in 2007-08, immediately started a hunger strike, demanding that he be released.

Despite ending his protest after more than 40 days, Monés remains in jail, awaiting trial on an "assault" charge, for which he could be sentenced to up to 5 years in prison.

Orlando Zapata Tamayo

Meanwhile, another political prisoner on a lengthy hunger strike, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, is sticking with his protest. Zapata, who started his hunger strike Oct. 1, is demanding that he be transferred out a prison cell block where common criminals, at the behest of guards, have threatened him.

Zapata's parents were able to visit their son in a prison hospital on Nov. 11 and reported that he was critically ill but remained committed to his protest.

Ángel Antonio Blanco Rodríguez, Cuban Political Prisoner of the Week, 11/16/08

Ángel Antonio Blanco Rodríguez wants no one to be confused about his political stance: He hates the Castro dictatorship.

And he'd rather be naked than to wear clothes that suggest otherwise.

Blanco, who is in his early 20s, first rejected the dictatorship and its garb when he deserted the military in 2006. He was arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to 6 years in prison for desertion, as well as for unlawful possession of a weapon and for trying to leave Cuba without permission.

An inmate at the Mar Verde prison in Santiago de Cuba, Blanco on Nov. 10 was sent to a tiny, dark punishment cell after he refused to wear a uniform identifying him as a common criminal, and not a political prisoner. It was the latest in a series of abuses by Blanco's captors — denial of family visits, verbal insults and threats of beatings, etc. — in retaliation for his political position against the regime.

In response, Blanco has started a hunger strike that has left him weakened, according to a report from fellow political prisoner Luís Enrique Ferrer García.

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 m_r_masferrer@yahoo.com

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