Uncommon Sense

Activists to launch Twitter campaign on behalf of jailed Cuban artists

Martinoticias.com has details on a Twitter-based campaign to demand the Castro regime release from jail Cuban writer Ángel Santisteban and graffiti artist Danilo Maldonado; and end its prosecution of performance artist Tania Bruguera.

In Washington, Cuban activists get a hearing; in Havana, they get arrested

Cuban democracy activists Rosa Maria Paya, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, aka Antunez and other dissidents were on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., to testify before several congressional panels about what they think of the recent rapprochement between the United States and Cuba. By all accounts they were received with respect, even by those who might disagree with them about President Barack Obama's shift in policy.

Cuban dissident Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, known as "Antunez," poses for a photo during a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Human Rights on Feb. 5, 2015. (EFE photo)

In the same week, on Thursday a dozen human activists in Havana went to the National Assembly to air their grievances about conditions on the island. Among their demands were for the government to abolish the law that allows Cubans to be declared "pre-criminal social dangers,' and for it to ratify international human rights agreements it has signed.

Human rights activists in Havana before their arrest Thursday.

In a contrast that must not be ignored, they were greeted with arrest.

Eleven of the 12 have been released but as of late Friday the whereabouts of their leader, former political prisoner Hugo Damián Prieto, were not know.

Hugo Damien Prieto

 

After latest arrest, former Cuban prisoner of conscience Ivan Hernandez says 'nothing has changed'

Ivan Hernandez Carrillo

Independent journalist and former prisoner of conscience Ivan Hernandez Carrillo was arrested and detained for several hours, and had some of his belongings, including copies of a dissident magazine, confiscated Thursday in Havana.

After his release, Hernandez had a message for those who choose to negotiate with the Castro dictatorship:

#Cuba Para los que negocian con el régimen de Castro: aquí no ha cambiado nada, la represión, los arrestos, abusos y crímenes continúan.

— Iván Hdez Carrillo (@ivanlibre) February 5, 2015

"For those who negotiate with the Castro regime: Here nothing has changed - the repression, the arrests, the abuses and the crimes continue."

Cuba Lady In White Berta Soler to U.S. Senate: Our demands for freedom 'are quite concrete'

Berta Soler

Berta Soler, leader of the Cuban Ladies In White, summed up what Cuba truly needs near the conclusion of her testimony before a U.S. Senate subcommittee on Tuesday:

Our demands are quite concrete: freedom for political prisoners, recognition of civil society, the elimination of all criminal dispositions that penalize freedom of expression and association and the right of the Cuban people to choose their future to free multiparty elections.

We believe these demands are just and valid. Even more importantly, for us they represent the most concrete exercise of politics, a step in the direction of democratic coexistence.

You can read Soler's whole statement here, including her stirring conclusion.

 

 

Human rights group: At least 178 political arrests in Cuba in January

Cuban police in January made at least 178 politically motivated arrests, according to the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

It's the lowest monthly count by the group since September 2010, perhaps giving reason to trust that the Obama-Castro deal for closer U.S.-Cuba ties announced last month might signal a true change in the human rights situation on the island.

Of course, to conclude that after a single month -- after a record 8,899 arrests in 2014 -- would be, at best, naive, and at worst, confirm that the Obama-Castro deal has as yet, not brought real change to Cuba.

Even the State Department's top human rights official is not ready to go that far.

“The nature of the Cuban regime has not changed and we have not claimed so,” said Tom Malinowski, assistant secretary of State for human rights, at a congressional hearing on Tuesday. “We have seen a significant decrease in the number of arrests, but I don’t want to say that one month represents a trend.”

She's out of jail, but Sonia Garro Alfonso remains a political prisoner in Cuba

Sonia Garro Alfonso

Sonia Garro Alfonso may have been released from jail last month as part of the Obama-Castro deal for closer ties between the United States and Cuba, but that doesn't mean she's still not a prisoner in her own country.

This past Saturday, and again on Saturday, Cuban government officials told Garro, who was jailed for almost three years without trial, she would not be allowed to accept a human rights group's invitation to visit Germany because of a "pending judicial process," Martinoticias.com reported Tuesday.

Garro, her husband Ramón Alejandro Muñoz González and another activist, Eugenio Hernández Hernández, were arrested in March 2012 as part of a crackdown that preceded the visit to Cuba of Pope Benedict XVI.

Garro and her husband were later hit with various charges, including "attempted murder," but various trial dates were postponed before they were finally released from prison in December, as the dictator Raul Castro promised President Barack Obama during their secret negotiations.

But like other political prisoners that Cuba has freed, Garro remains hostage to the whims of the regime, susceptible at any point to re-arrest and re-imprisonment.

Which wouldn't be much different than what Garro is dealing with now.

More hope in change you can count on.

Rosa Maria Paya: Engagement without respect for Cubans' human rights is a fraud

Cuban activist Rosa Maria Paya's prepared statement delivered to a U.S. Senate subcommittee on Tuesday is a must-read to understanding why the Obama administrations rapprochement with the Castro dictatorship falls so far short of what Cuba and Cubans truly need.

Via The Canal:

In recent years my country has been engaged in a deception. The Cuban government is changing the Law, but ignoring the rights of the people, which were sequestered over half a century ago.

More people are allowed to enter and leave the country, but the regime decides who can enjoy this “privilege.” The migratory reform was established as a control mechanism. For example, the government has invalidated the passport of the artist Tania Bruguera for attempting a performance in Havana. Sonia Garro, a member of the Ladies in White, and one of the political prisoners released during the Washington-Havana secret deal, cannot travel abroad and thus she is still a hostage of the government, as Alan Gross was for five years. The same applies to the former prisoners of the Cause of the 75 from the spring of 2003.

The Cuban government has permitted more people to operate small businesses, but due to the Cuban laws, entrepreneurs cannot be a factor to foster democracy because their existence as “private” owners depends on their submission to the government. There cannot be free markets where there are no free persons.

The Cuban government said it would free 53 political prisoners, but instead it released them on parole. Meanwhile, many others were not freed at all. Yosvani Melchor was transferred to a maximum security prison last December. He was put in prison four years ago for being the son of a member of the Christian Liberation Movement, who refused to cooperate with State Security. The young artist Danilo Maldonado, known as El Sexto, was imprisoned after December 17 without committing any crime. The regime turns political prisoners into pieces to be exchanged, because they can catch-and-release at will more political prisoners, and democratic nations accept this blackmail with innocent citizens.

As my father did, four months before he was killed, I denounce the regime’s attempt to impose a fraudulent change, and I denounce the interests that hamper a real transition and the recovery of our sovereignty. My father also denounced the attempt to link groups of exiles to this fraudulent change. He said, “The diaspora is the diaspora because they are Cuban exiles to whom the regime denied all rights, as they do to all Cubans. In such a context of oppression, without rights and without transparency, the insertion of the diaspora would only be part of the fraudulent changes.”

As the engagement would be fraudulent, if the United States were to accept the rule of the Cuban government. We have never asked our people to be isolated or embargoed, but engagement will only be real if it occurs between free peoples.

Read the whole thing here.

Hope in change | Cuban police arrest, beat activist in Havana

Leudi Reyes Cusa

Leudi Reyes Cusa's name probably will never come up with American and Cuban officials face each other across the negotiating table, but what happened to him last is important for what it says about the situation on the ground across the island.

Reyes, an activist with the Orlando Zapata Hardline Front, was beaten and arrested by Cuban police near his workplace in Havana, according to a report from Hablemos Press.

The beatings continued even after he was handcuffed, according to Reyes' wife.

Reyes is currently being held at the Havana detention center known as VIVAC.

Hablemos Press has more details.