Juan Carlos González Marcos, Cuban Political Prisoner of the Week, 8/23/09 (UPDATED x 2)

For updates, scroll down.

Juan Carlos González Marcos, aka "Pánfilo," may be the unlikeliest of political prisoners.

He was not an independent journalist or librarian or human rights activist. He was just a man, a street person, really, just trying to survive in Castro's Cuba.

But when his struggle hit the Internet, with this simple but painful — and probably drunken —pleadings for food, he became a symbol of everything that is wrong with life on the island. The revolution that has promised so much in its 50 years in power, cannot even meet its citizens' basic needs.

As is usually the case in Cuba today, truth-telling like Pánfilo's cannot be tolerated by the regime, which is why it recently sentenced him to 2 years in prison after finding that he was a "pre-criminal social danger."

That is why Pánfilo is deserving of the status of "political prisoner," because he exposed one of the many great lies about the Castro dictatorship, and because that dictatorship then punished him accordingly.

Pánfilo

Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez wrote about Pánfilo in a recent column for Huffington Post:

In a society marked by punishments against those who express their opinions, neither fools nor children say what they think, only drunkards. Thus, I wasn't surprised at the news that they found Panfilo to be a criminal and charged him with "pre-criminal dangerousness" for which he was given two years in prison. The judicial process must have sobered him up faster than a bucket of cold water and an extremely strong coffee. Although there is still the possibility of appealing this decision before the court, he's unlikely to get off without punishment because it is a lesson aimed not only at him. If they don't condemn him, who will prevent the corner alcoholics, the neighborhood drunks, from standing in front of a camera and starting to shout for everything we lack: Food! Future! Freedom!

Another great piece in English about Pánfilo was posted last week at SunSentinel.com.

And here''s more from Pánfilo:

UPDATED, Aug. 26, 2009. There's an international campaign calling for Pánfilo's release. Learn more, here.

UPDATED, Sept. 17, 2009. Pánfilo has been released from prison.