Juan Ramón Olivera Despaigne
Under a dictatorship's like Cuba, the bastards in charge make it their life's work, and that of their flunkies, to try to control every facet of life.
Where you live. Where you go to school. Where and how you make your living. Break with what the bastards in charge have planned for you, and you risk being labeled a "criminal," and worse. The Castro gulag is filled with Cubans who have broken with the regime, and just said, "No."
Juan Ramón Olivera Despaigne recently said, "No," to the dictatorship's attempts to control his activities, and as a result, he was sentenced to 2 years in prison.
Olivera, a member of the 30th of November Party, was selling tomatoes from out front of his home in Santiago de Cuba, when three government officials, including one police officer, tried to seize the merchandise. Remember this communist Cuba, and the tomato sale, according to these flunkies, amounted to "illicit" economic activity.
Olivera refused to hand over the tomatoes, instead, he began giving them away to passersby - after all, they were his tomatoes. For good measure, Olivera began shouting, "Long live a free Cuba," and "Long live human rights."
Olivera was arrested and taken to a local police station, where he was held for 5 days, which is how long it took for officials to come up a trumped-up charge of "assault." One of the government inspectors claimed Olivera had hit him with a couple of the tomatoes.
Initially, a police officer had agreed that the inspector had been struck by the tomatoes, but when it came time to testify at trial, he wasn't so sure. It didn't really matter, as in Cuban court, government opponents are guilty because the government says so.
Olivera has repeatedly denied the charges.
His real crime, of course, is that he refused to be enslaved by the dictatorship, to do what it says, and how it says. He is his own man, which under a dictatorship, is the greatest crime of them all.
Where you live. Where you go to school. Where and how you make your living. Break with what the bastards in charge have planned for you, and you risk being labeled a "criminal," and worse. The Castro gulag is filled with Cubans who have broken with the regime, and just said, "No."
Juan Ramón Olivera Despaigne recently said, "No," to the dictatorship's attempts to control his activities, and as a result, he was sentenced to 2 years in prison.
Olivera, a member of the 30th of November Party, was selling tomatoes from out front of his home in Santiago de Cuba, when three government officials, including one police officer, tried to seize the merchandise. Remember this communist Cuba, and the tomato sale, according to these flunkies, amounted to "illicit" economic activity.
Olivera refused to hand over the tomatoes, instead, he began giving them away to passersby - after all, they were his tomatoes. For good measure, Olivera began shouting, "Long live a free Cuba," and "Long live human rights."
Olivera was arrested and taken to a local police station, where he was held for 5 days, which is how long it took for officials to come up a trumped-up charge of "assault." One of the government inspectors claimed Olivera had hit him with a couple of the tomatoes.
Initially, a police officer had agreed that the inspector had been struck by the tomatoes, but when it came time to testify at trial, he wasn't so sure. It didn't really matter, as in Cuban court, government opponents are guilty because the government says so.
Olivera has repeatedly denied the charges.
His real crime, of course, is that he refused to be enslaved by the dictatorship, to do what it says, and how it says. He is his own man, which under a dictatorship, is the greatest crime of them all.
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