Spotlight on Cuba: Crackdown on Dissidents

Chronology of Events - April 2006

April 27: Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas, three months into a hunger strike, is in stable condition under doctors' care but continues to refuse food or liquids, family members told the press. Fariñas, who remains hospitalized in the central city of Santa Clara, launched the hunger strike on January 31 to press his demand for Cubans to be allowed unrestricted access to the Internet. Cuba's 47-year-old one-party Communist government limits legal access to the Web in an effort to control what the populace may read and see. The dissident's mother, Alicia Hernandez, said that her son has experienced a "slight improvement" in recent days after surviving repeated kidney failure and an infection accompanied by very high fever. (EFE, 27/4/06)

April 26: Reporters Without Borders, or RSF for its initials in French, said that Cuban authorities are carrying out a campaign to silence journalist Roberto Santana Rodriguez, who works for the on-line publication Cubanet. In a communique, RSF said that over a number of months the Cuban police several times have "ordered" Santana to stop writing for Cubanet and have threatened to throw him in jail. The press organization criticized the "blackmail of resorting to Law 88, regarding national independence and the Cuban economy, which provides the regime with an argument for sentencing dissidents to (lengthy) prison terms. (EFE, 27/4/06)

April 26: The state of human rights in Cuba is increasingly worsening, Czech Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda (the Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL) told a meeting of European diplomats and NGOs on the situation in Cuba. The number of political prisoners and attacks on dissidents and their families is increasing on the island, ruled by a Communist regime headed by Fidel Castro for almost 50 years, Svoboda said. "We will advocate the release of all political prisoners," Svoboda said. "When the Czech Republic wants to celebrate its national holiday, it will invite even those who seek democratisation and freedom in Cuba," Svoboda said, alluding to an incident last year when Cuban authorities banned the celebrations of the Czech national holiday in Havana, arguing that it is a counter-revolutionary act. (CTK, 26/4/06)

April 25: A mob organized by the Communist government's secret police beat up a prominent dissident and invaded her home, a human rights group and the victim of the agression said. Marta Beatriz Roque told the press that the incident occurred when a group of people stationed themselves in front of her house in the capital to prevent her from attending a meeting at the home of the head of the US Interests Section in Cuba, Michael Parmly. She said that when she tried to leave her home, about 10 men and two women pushed and beat her in the passageway that leads from the house to the street, and a man entered her residence and slugged her in the face. She acknowledged she had shouted, "Down with Fidel!," referring to the aging autocrat who has ruled this island nation since 1959. Roque, an economist and former university professor, said that after being beaten she had problems seeing out of one eye and had bruises on one of her legs and an arm. The Cuban Committee for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) denounced what it called the "brutal aggression" against Roque. Also the Christian Liberation Movement, lead by dissident Oswaldo Paya, denounced the aggression as a “cowardly” and “fascist” assault against a woman. (EFE, El Nuevo Herald, 26/4/06)

April 20: The health of Doctor Oscar Elías Biscet González, a Cuban prisoner of conscience in the Combinado del Este prison in Havana, has “notably deteriorated”, reported his wife Elsa Morejón. “Oscar is in a humid cell with no light, and without adequate food”, denounced Morejón, who criticized the complete abandon in the administration of medicines to her husband. Biscet has been in prison under severe conditions for several years after being sentenced to 25 years in jail in the spring of 2003. (Europa Press, 20/4/06)

April 18: The wife of political prisoner Dr. Alfredo Pulido Lopez, denounced that her husband’s health condition has significantly worsened. Rebeca Rodriguez said that Dr. Pulido, a dentist who was incarcerated in Kilo 8 Prison, Camaguey province, after the crackdown against dissidents in 2003, has lost a lot of weight and suffers from chronic bronchitis. Lack of air also affect Dr. Pulido’s health, and recently, dark bruises of an unknown origin have appeared on his skin. He is now at least 20 pounds under what he weighed when he was incarcerated in 2003. Rebeca said that she had never seen her husband so depressed and psychologically distraught. According to the Cuban dentist’s testimony, his condition is related to an increase of aggressiveness among the prisoners. He pointed out that a few days before his wife’s visit, one prisoner had killed another. “We are constantly under inspection. They call those of us that are political prisoners ‘counter-revolutionaries’ and treat us like common criminals.” Dr. Pulido, 46, practiced dentistry for 22 years until 1998 when he was expelled from his clinic for linking himself to the dissident movement through the Christian Liberation Movement. (Netfor Cuba, 24/4/06)

April 14: Cuban prisons remain packed full of political prisoners and repression against dissidents, opponents of the regime, independent journalists and correspondents is on the rise. All this is made clear with the recent detentions and threats carried out by the forces of the State Security against members of the opposition on the threshold of the third anniversary of the wave of repression of March 2003. In the municipality of Consolación del Sur in Pinar del Río province, the house of Felipe Gil Sanjudo, an independent journalist, was visited by two State Security agents and by the chief of the police in that territory. They threatened to jail Sanjudo if he participated in the activity commemorating the anniversary of the crackdown on dissidents of 2003. They also told him they wouldn't allow him to travel to the city of Pinar del Río. In the eastern zone of the island in the town of San Luis in Santiago de Cuba, Maura Isset was assaulted, together with her husband, in her own home by security agents. The agents insulted her verbally for her membership to a dissident organization. Isset is affiliated with the Federation of Latin American Rural Women (FLAMUR). (Cubanet, 14/4/06)

April 10: Wives of Cuban imprisoned dissidents known as the “Ladies in White” invited the leader of Izquierda Unida Spain (United Left), Gaspar Llamazares, to travel to Cuba to get to know the reality in the country, after the coalition vetoed a proposal in favour of the release of the prisoners. “We understand that honest people are confused”, they say in a letter in which they urge Llamazares to walk the streets, visit the homes and “to show up at any prison (...) in any province, at random”. (EFE, 10/4/06)

April 7: A report issued by the illegal dissident organization, Cuban Foundation of Human Rights (FCDH), denounces the “critical situation that the Cuban people suffer in matters concerning human rights, as well as public freedoms”. Signed by Juan Carlos Leiva, president of the FCDH, based in the city of Ciego de Avila, in the eastern province with the same name, the report denounces the “acts of repudiation” as “the main weapon of repression and terror currently used by the Cuban government” against the dissidents and their families, and states that “in the last ten months, the government has carried out over 100” of these repressive acts. The report also denounces violations of civil and political rights, as well as the inhuman conditions in jail. “More than 500 political prisoners remain locked in Cuban prisons. Close to one hundred of them are prisoners of conscience. Almost daily, military officials in all the prisons of the country deal savage beatings to the prisoners in general (…) The prisoners are beaten with whips made from marabou, rubber straps, and hoses: they are also kicked and slapped. Food and water is cut back to insignificant quantities. The prisoners’ cells are enclosed (without light) with a hole in the floor for their bodily functions”, the report says. (Netfor Cuba, 7/4/06)

April 2: Cuban political prisoner and independent journalist Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez has been on a hunger strike since last March 21, protesting the abuses he is being subjected to in prison as well as the fact that he is being held without due process for over fourteen months now. According to his relatives, Roberto de Jesús wrote 17 letters to his relatives and prison officials never mailed them. The 27-year old independent journalist and promoter of the ¨Corriente Martiana¨ in Havana is being held in prison without due process since July 13 of 2005. On January 20th, 2006, he was transferred to the prison Nieves Morejón in Sancti Spiritu while his legal situation is still in limbo. (Puente Informativo, 2/4/06)

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