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A version of this post appeared earlier.
Miguel Rafael Cabrera
Countless number of children have been separated from their families during the more than five decades the Castro dictatorship has ruled Cuba. It is one of the regime’s more unforgiveable sins.
One of the newest victims of the dictatorship's abuse is 2-year-old Hamilton Cabrera Garces.
Former prisoner of conscience Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia tweeted from Cuba one day last week that young Hamilton spent the day crying, asking his caregivers for his parents.
If he were older, Hamilton might be proud of his parents, in jail because of their active opposition to the Castro dictatorship. And he might be nurturing a hatred for their captors.
But he just misses his Mami and Papi.
His father, Miguel Rafael Cabrera, has been in jail since Aug. 28, arrested along with several other activists and held in "provisional incarceration," while the regime's prosecutors prepare a case charging them with "public disorder" or other such nonsense. Soon after his arrest, Cabrera started a hunger strike -- a protest that Ferrer reported via Twitter last week he has suspended.
Young Hamilton's mother, Yelena Garces Napoles, was arrested Sept. 8, after she had a confrontation with the head of her neighborhood's snitch squad, the Committee in Defense of the Revolution. The Castro lackey had provoked Garces, by accusing her of neglecting her child before her recent death.
Other activists witnessed this shameful episode and responded with shouts of "Down with Fidel" and "Down with Raul."
As often happens during such confrontations, it was Garces who was arrested. Last week, she was transferred to the Mar Verde prison in Santiago de Cuba, to await possible trial on a charge of "assault" that could lead to a prison sentence of 1 to 3 years.
Her sister Aimee Garces recently visited her in jail.
"Yelena looks strong, dedicated, she knows she is being unjustly imprisoned," Aimee said. "She asked me to take care of her son, to not leave his side, to go see him every day."
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UPDATED, Oct. 9, 2011 -- Yelena Garces was released Oct. 9, 2011.
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