Cuban Americans should be able to help their family members on the island, whether with unlimited visits or unlimited remittances. But one of the misgivings I have about the policy change announced this week by the Obama administration is that it alone won't help free Cuban prisoners of conscience like Juan Antonio Bermúdez Toranzo.
Bermúdez has been on hunger strike since Feb. 14. He has a simple, albeit quixotic demand for his captors in the Castro dictatorship: Release all political prisoners and abide by the international human rights treaties to which Cuba is a signatory.
Bermúdez, a human rights activist serving a 4-year prison term handed down in March 2008, after he was convicted of "threatening," also has a request for Cubans opposed to the Castro dictatorship. He wants them to gather May 20 - Cuban Independence Day - at the José Martí plaza in Havana for a massive rally to demand freedom for Cuba.
Bermúdez's wife told independent journalist Álvaro Yero Felipe that Bermúdez plans to continue his protest until that day.
The suffering of Cuban political prisoners will never be acceptable, but it does have its purpose. Bermúdez reminds us, with both his demand and his request, that freedom is outlawed in Cuba, and that will be the case as long as there is a single political prisoner in the Castro gulag.
Any changes in policy toward Cuba must recognize that, and accept as its goal, the end of that tyranny.
Wherever you stand on the question of Cuba travel and remittances or the larger embargo, please always remember that.
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