February 28: A Cuban dissident released from jail more than a year ago on medical grounds complained that the authorities in Cuba are "monitoring" his activities and have told him that he could be returned to prison if his health improves. Oscar Espinosa Chepe was among the 75 opposition figures rounded up and sentenced to stiff prison terms by the Fidel Castro government in the spring of 2003 and is one of the 14 members of that group who have been freed for health reasons. The 65-year-old economist suffers from liver problems, hypertension and gastrointestinal haemorrhaging, among other things.
Espinosa told the press that he was summoned before a Havana municipal court where judicial authorities informed him that "if I recovered my health, I could go back to prison." In addition, he said, "a (…) committee has been formed at the neighbourhood level comprised of political elements [“los factores”] like the [Communist] Party, the Revolutionary Defense Committees and the Association of Combatants to monitor my social activities." He also said that the opinions of the government-linked organs about his behaviour could determine whether or not he retains his freedom. The court also told Espinosa that he could not leave Havana without providing 72 hours of advance notice, the same length of time the authorities have instructed him to give if he intends to move, he added. Espinosa said further that the court told him that it would appoint a family doctor to supervise his health. The dissident attributed his situation to a campaign directed at the public to show "what can happen when a citizen is not obedient, at a time when the citizenry is recognizing that the [Cuban] system has failed." The court also summoned freed dissident Jorge Olivera - another Group of 75 member released from prison for health reasons - to appear before it on March 1. (EFE, 28/2/06)
February 28: Reporters Without Borders said it feared that court summonses issued to independent journalists Oscar Espinosa Chepe and Jorge Olivera Castillo mean they will be sent back to jail. The two men, who were imprisoned in the March 2003 crackdown, were released on health grounds at the end of 2004. They then both sought and were refused permission to leave Cuba. “These ill-timed court summonses look like a judicial farce”, said the press freedom organisation. “What is the point of trying to get independent journalists to give up their work, knowing full well that they will never do so?” asked the press freedom organisation. “If the Cuban authorities are so determined to silence Oscar Espinosa Chepe and Jorge Olivera Castillo why don’t they grant their request to leave the country? The repression of dissident voices is in any event doomed to failure”, it added. (RWB Press Release, 28/3/06)
February 27: A group of "the Ladies in White", mothers, wives and other relatives of the 75 Cuban political prisoners, sentenced to long prison terms by the Cuban government back in the Cuban Spring of 2003, paid a visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Charity, in Santiago de Cuba province. Miriam Leyva, wife of the economist and independent journalist Oscar Espinosa Chepe, sentenced to 20 years prison, now in parole due to health condition, declared to the press that, they “also prayed and implored for the cease and desist of the “actos de repudio” (acts of repudiation) and repression against the dissidents”. Also visiting the Shrine with Mrs. Leyva were Laura Pollán Toledo, Berta Soler Fernández, Julia Núñez Pacheco, Alejandrina García de la Riva and Yailín Fernández. (Puente Informativo, 27/2/06)
February 24: A media watchdog condemned the Cuban authorities for harassing independent journalists and failing to provide adequate medical treatment for those in prison. The Committee to Protect Journalists cited the example of journalist Jorge Olivera Castillo, who was released from jail in December 2004 on medical parole. Olivera was ordered by a Havana municipal court to work at a state-controlled office that the court would select. He also told CPJ that he was barred from attending public gatherings and leaving Havana. Olivera was sentenced in March 2003 to 18 years in prison in a massive crackdown on the independent media. While on medical parole he has contributed to the Miami-based news web site Cubanet and other international publications. "It is outrageous that Cuba, which jails more journalists than any other country in the world except China, should continue to harass journalists even after they have left prison," said CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper. "Cuba now has 24 journalists behind bars solely for exercising their right to free expression. Some of them are not receiving the medical treatment that they need, Cooper said. "We call on the authorities to release these 24 prisoners immediately and to stop harassing all journalists," she added. (AFP, 24/2/06)
February 24: Cuban government authorities organized and directed a violent act of repudiation against human rights defenders to prevent them from holding a meeting in the house of dissident Guido Sigler Amaya, in Pedro Betancourt, province of Matanzas. The demonstrators forced open a door and entered the house. They savagely beat up all inside, including several women with children, one of whom had just recently given birth. With a wound to the head, Antonio Perez Morell, was handcuffed and beaten again inside the police car that took him to the police station, accused of “public disorder”. (Payo Libre, 24/2/06)
February 23: The independent journalist Jorge Olivera Castillo declared that a judge in Havana that goes by the name of Vicente, threatened to send him back to prison if Olivera Castillo does not comply with the stipulations that the Court said were placed on his conditional release. “I am forced to work for a centre predetermined by the court where I will be watched by members of the Cuban Communist Party, the official labour union and employees from the court”. “I can no longer travel outside the limits of the city of Havana without authorization from that court and I cannot assist in any public event or in any public festivity”, declared Olivera Castillo. The independent journalist who continues writing articles on the Cuban reality pointed out that his writings “do not constitute a crime”. “I only write the truth that the official press refuses to publish. It was the reason I was sentenced to 18 years in jail”. At the time of his arrest in March of 2003, Olivera was the Director of the Independent Press Agency. He was released in 2004 due to poor health condition. Since February of 2005, Jorge Olivera Castillo awaits for a permit from the Cuban Immigration Department to be able to leave the island with his family. (Puente Informativo, 23/2/06)
February 22: The Open Democracy Club (KOD), a group of Czech senators, has supported the call by Cuban dissidents to the international community to help stop repressions against leaders of the opponents of Fidel Castro's regime and create a special international committee for this purpose. KOD member Jaromir Stetina (unaffiliated, for the Greens), paid "a semi-illegal visit" to local dissidents in Cuba. He also handed an appeal by the Cuban opposition to Rene van der Linden, head of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, in Prague. The authors of the Cuban request point out that Fidel Castro's regime has recently intensified its pressure against people voicing their disapproval of the economic and political situation in the country. The 13-member KOD group comprises senators from the junior ruling Freedom Union (US-DEU) and several small parties that are not represented in the lower house. (CTK, 22/2/06)
February 22: Cuban independent journalist Guillermo Fariñas, on a hunger strike, was again taken to the intensive care unit at the Santa Clara Provincial Hospital—where he’s been since February 10. Fariñas began a hunger strike on January 31 in demand of unrestricted access to the Internet. (EER, 22/2/06)
February 21: Juan Carlos González Leiva, a blind Cuban lawyer and civic activist, president of the Cuban Foundation for Human Rights (CFHR), denounced that almost every day the Cuban State Security is sending him "messages" with strangers who request membership in the CFHR, that he will soon suffer another violent “act of repudiation”. Rubber tubes and cables were given to Gonzalez Leiva by these strangers, as proof of the knowledge they have that he will soon be violently attacked in another act of repudiation being prepared against him. In mid January, Gonzalez Leiva's house was under military seige for several days, where he remained confined without any water, electricity or telephone service. Mobs of up to 400 people brought by State Security surrounded his home, screaming governmental slogans, committing acts of vandalism, and beating activists. (Netfor Cuba, 21/2/06)
February 17: The Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) called a “man hunt” an act of repudiation against opponents in the city of Moa, Holguín, where three dissidents were beaten on the streets.” Government officials, members of the Communist Party and supporters organized by the political police, set out on a hunt after Omar Pérez Torres, José Manuel de la Rosa Pérez and Alejandro Aranda Martínez”, reported Elizardo Sánchez Santacruz, president of the CCDHRN. “Without any warning, they started beating them. Omar Pérez was knocked unconscious by the blows, and they continued kicking him on the ground, (...) he was hospitalized “for broken ribs and lacerations to the face”, which might cause the “loss of vision in one of his eyes ”. (EER, 23/2/06)
February 16: Independent journalist Guillermo Fariñas Hernández is determined to restart his hunger strike to press his demand to the Cuban authorities for Internet access that he began on 31 January 2006, friends said. Friend and colleague Manuel Vázquez Portal, founder of the Grupo de Trabajo Decoro news agency, now living in exile in Miami, confirmed it. “I phoned him at the hospital on 14 February and he told me that he would resume his hunger strike as soon as he was discharged,” he said. He was admitted to the Arnaldo Milián Castro provincial hospital in Villa Clara, central Cuba on 8 February and is still on a drip. However his state of health has continued to progressively deteriorate despite the artificial feeding. (RWB Press Release, 16/2/06)
February 15: Reporters Without Borders called for the immediate release of José Ubaldo Izquierdo Hernández, jailed since the March 2003 crackdown, and whose prison doctors have said his state of health is incompatible with imprisonment. “The condition of José Ubaldo Izquierdo Hernández requires care that cannot be provided in jail, the prison doctors have recognised it themselves”, said the press freedom organisation. “The journalist’s recovery calls for him to be freed immediately, or failing that, to be granted a release on licence for health reasons. We hope that the Cuban authorities will respond favourably to this humanitarian request”, it added. Doctors meeting in Havana on February 9 confirmed that Izquierdo Hernández’s condition in Guanajay prison in Havana province had seriously deteriorated over the past nine months. (RWB Press Release, 15/2/06)
February 15: R epresentatives of the Spiritual Leaders Working Group, Monsignor Agustín Román, Rev. Martín Añorga and Rev. Onell Soto got together to ask the Cuban people to not cooperate with government-organized mobs that harass human rights activists on the island. Dozens of religious leaders of the exile community joined to
draft a document titled, "Contra el terror, el civismo" (Against terror, civility). In the document, they manifest their support for those neighbours in Cuba who have shown
their solidarity with activists that have been attacked by government-organized mobs. (Puente Informativo, 15/2/06)
February 13: Acting personally, a group of 135 Cubans embarked on an “urgent action against violence” in their country, and called on the rest of their compatriots to sign on to the project, according to a note sent to the media. “Many Cuban citizens are worried that—in a country where there’s no public debate on the topic—threats, rudeness and insults have come to replace communication between fellow citizens and call for respect in our relations”, adds the communiqué signed by 135 individuals. An attached note signed by moderate dissident Manuel Cuesta Morúa explains that “this is a strictly civic initiative calling on the decency of all Cubans, and does not respond to the interests of any particular civil, political or human rights organization in Cuba”. (AFP, 14/2/06)
February 13: Cuban dissident Omar Martinez Cardoso was victim of threats and examination by agents of the Technical Department of Investigation (DTI) of the Cuban Ministry of Interior. Martinez Cardoso, 29, was officially cited to a police station in Centro Havana where he was submitted to an examination by DTI agents Marco and Nemesio. “They threatened me”. “They told me to cooperate with them or I would be sanctioned”. The DTI agents gave Martínez Cardoso a telephone number in Havana in case he wanted to cooperate. "The agents also questioned me about a cellular telephone that I have and about my relations with counterrevolutionary elements in the Bahamas”, Martinez Cardoso said. (NetforCuba, 14/2/06)
February 12: For over two weeks, doctor Hilda Molina’s house, located in Plaza, City of Havana, has been besieged by mobs recruited by Cuban authorities, reported the illegal Assembly to Promote the Civil Society in Cuba (APSC). “They throw animal excrement in front of her door every day, and make a racket in front of her windows and throw objects at the door when Molina’s elderly mother rests”, added the APSC in a communiqué. Doctor Molina, a renowned Cuban specialist, who broke ranks with the regime more than a decade ago, has been held in Cuba by the government, which prevents her from travelling to Argentina to visit her son who resides there. [Comunicado de la APSC] (El Nuevo Herald, 15/2/06)
February 9: The Cuban government is resorting more to mob action to stifle dissent and at levels of violence unseen for years, the Communist-run country's main human rights organization said. The illegal but tolerated Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation said that on 24 different occasions in January groups of government supporters harassed dissidents. Five were physically assaulted and five government opponents' homes were searched, the commission said. "The government has unleashed a major operation against its opponents," a report issued by the organization said, adding incidents had taken place in eight of 14 provinces. (Reuters, 9/2/06)
February 9: A Cuban dissident journalist has agreed to be fed intravenously after an eight-day hunger strike left him in critical condition, a family member told the press. Guillermo Fariñas, who heads the outlawed Cubanacan news agency, had called the hunger strike to protest the communist regime's censorship of the Internet. Fariñas initially "said that he didn't want any treatment and insisted on continuing his strike," said a relative, who asked not to be named. But after medical staff and relatives insisted, he consented to be put on an intravenous drip, the relative said. His family did not support his hunger strike but respected the reasons for his protest, the source said. The journalist was in the intensive care ward of Arnaldo Milian hospital in central Cuba. His health remained in a "delicate" state after having arrived dehydrated and unconscious, the relative said. (AFP, 9/2/06)
February 7: Physically deteriorated, independent journalist Guillermo Fariñas began his seventh day of a hunger strike. Fariñas initiated the hunger strike on January 31 in protest for the lack of free access to Internet in Cuba. Several international human rights groups and journalism advocacy groups have taken up Fariñas' cause in recent days. Many Cubans can get access to simple e-mail accounts through government workplaces, universities and schools -- even post offices. But most Cubans who have access to Web pages through their jobs or schools are limited to a government-run intranet that filters out pages considered counterrevolutionary. Private Internet accounts paid for in foreign currency and allowing unfettered access to the Wide World Web are restricted to foreigners and Cubans with special government permission. (Cubanet, AP, 7/2/06)
February 7: The Ladies in White, a group of mothers, wives and relatives of Cuban dissidents in jail called for an “end to harassment, repression and insults” against them. In a communiqué, the movement condemned the “acts of repudiation” carried out against them since March 2005 in Havana and other cities. The group pointed out that some of these acts have turned into physical attacks against “peaceful women”, putting “our health and our lives as well as that of our children and other relatives” at risk. (Europa Press, 7/2/06)
February 7: The Assembly to Promote Civil Society has condemned increased harassment of dissidents on the island by Cuban authorities including “searches, seizures and illegal interrogations”. “The (Cuban) Government increases its illegal acts on a daily basis, for example, by entering peoples’ homes to interrogate them about where they have been, without any legal grounds”, said the organization in a press release. (Europa Press, 7/2/06)
February 6: Slovakia will request that the European Union assess its relations with Cuba more strictly, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Juraj Tomaga. Slovakia thus reacted to the European Union's call on its member states to increase pressure on Cuba and demand the release of all political prisoners. (Sme, 6/2/06)
February 1: A dissident journalist in Cuba began a hunger strike to protest his loss of Internet access, one day after The Miami Herald featured him in a story. The Miami Herald featured Guillermo Fariñas, 43, in a front-page article January 22 about a wave of attacks against dissidents. On January 23, Fariñas said, all the e-mail addresses he regularly used at a cyber cafe were suddenly blocked. The addresses include those of several Miami exile organizations that disseminate his reports about Cuban government persecution. Fariñas, director of the independent Cubanacán Press news agency in the central province of Villa Clara, said he will not eat or drink until the restrictions are lifted. It's the former psychologist's 20th hunger strike in a decade, he said. The longest lasted 11 days. (AFP, Europa Press, 1/2/06)
