UPDATED, Oct. 22, 2009 — Lázaro Rosales Rojas was released from prison Oct. 17, after completing his 3-year prison sentence.
Lázaro Rosales Rojas, convicted in 2006 and sentenced to 3 years in prison for being a "pre-criminal social danger is, indeed, a dangerous man for what he has revealed about the hell that is the Castro gulag. Repeatedly, Rosales, actually imprisoned because of his political opposition to the Castro dictatorship, has made sure the world knows what is happening in the island's dungeons.
For example, Rosales recently described the atrocious conditions prisoners at the Aguadores prison in Santiago de Cuba are made to suffer when it comes to water.
"To receive a half-liter of water a day is a privilege," Rosales said.
The water, distributed in small plastic bottles called "ballitas," is drawn through pipes from a water tank that is uncovered, leaving it susceptible to parasites and other contamination. Small amounts of water are also delivered to cell blocks so prisoners can bathe.
"Some families bring drinking water during their visits, and there are weeks when water is scarce," Rosales said. "To bathe once a week is a benefit, but there are prisoners who go two or three weeks without."
Not a single political prisoner deserves to be in jail, and it would be to the benefit of the dictatorship to release them all, if only to block the distribution of this kind of information about the Castro gulag.
Because it is with information, with the truth, that political prisoners like Rosales continue their struggle against tyranny.
And that is a truth that one day will set all Cubans free.
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