December 26: Despite pleas from fellow persecuted Christians not to do so, Cuban prisoner of conscience and journalist Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta sewed his mouth shut and was believed to continue his action, dissidents said. Harrera Acosta, 40, sewed his mouth, at the maximum security Prison of Kilo 8, in Camaguey, Cuba's largest province, said Juan Carlos Gonzalez Leiva, a blind Christian lawyer and president of the Cuban Foundation for Human Rights (FCDH). He, "sewed his mouth shut to protest the hostile treatment he is suffering at the hands of State Security and Military officers at this penitentiary," said Gonzalez Leiva. "The guards deprive this prisoner of conscience his right to telephone calls and his end of the year family visit is suspended. Herrera Acosta is under continuous psychological persecution, since he is tormented by dangerous common prisoners," he said in remarks released by an underground news agency. Oswaldo Paya Sardinas, who in 2002 received the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, said he had urged Herrera Acosta not to sew his mouth. In late October, "I asked him not to do it- I am not ashamed to say that I begged it of him- telling him that it is us who still have the opportunity to speak out," he said. At the same time Paya urged Christians and others that "before daring to judge him (...) ask themselves: 'What have I done in the face of this horror that so many human beings live through day to day in Cuban jails?'" (BosNewsLife, 30/12/06)
December 20: Political prisoner Normando Hernández was in critical condition when he was admitted last December 13 into a ward of the Camagüey Provincial Hospital, reported his wife, Yaraí Reyes. In declarations to the Cuban Human Rights Foundation, Yaraí said that it had been several days since Hernández had been confined in a room of that hospital and that, in spite of being in critical condition, the prison guards had kept him without a bed and other necessary furniture for a week. (EER, 21/12/06)
December 19: Political prisoner Rafael Millet Leiva was released after a four-year incarceration without trial in "El Guayabo" prison, in southwestern Isle of Pines. Fabio Prieto Llorente, another political prisoner, told the Cuban Foundation for Human Rights (FCDH) that Millet Leiva was sent to prison without trial in 2003 under the alleged crime of public desobedience and distribution of “enemy” propaganda material. (Cubanet, 26/12/06)
December 13: Cuban authorities released an independent journalist - a category not tolerated by the Communist regime - after grilling him for nine days, but the young reporter says his prosecution on charges of "spreading false news" continues. Ahmed Rodriguez, a 22-year-old journalist for the "Young People Without Censorship" agency, told the press his treatment while jailed between December 4 and December 12, when he was released at night, "was not bad." But he also said he was interrogated "day and night" in sessions of up to six hours straight. "I was arrested on the charge of the supposed crime of spreading false news, which I think is a smokescreen used to prosecute me," he said. The terms of his release oblige him not to leave Havana and to remain "locate-able" while his prosecution continues. If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to four years in prison. "I will continue to struggle for freedom of expression and I will carry on with my journalistic work. But I will try to be more moderate," he said. Rodriguez had been writing about conditions in Cuban prisons. He suffered a three-day detention in September. (EFE, 13/12/06)
December 12: Margarita Albacia Sánchez began the fifth day of her hunger strike in demand of the immediate release of her son, independent journalist Ahmed Rodríguez Albacia. Ms. Albacia began the hunger strike across from the Technical Department of Investigations (DTI)’s head office, on the corner of 100 St and Aldabó Ave., where Ahmed remains in custody. When the authorities had her removed, she moved the protest to her home, in the Old Havana municipality. (Cubanet, 12/12/06)
December 11: Photos that show the hurt felt by families of political prisoners in Cuba are on exhibit at the Organization of American States (OAS) headquarters in Washington. Thirty portraits of individuals holding small photos of husbands, brothers, children and parents who have been jailed by the Cuban regime make up the exhibit. "The thing that stands out (…) is the look of sadness in the eyes of family members," said Ambassador John Maisto, US permanent representative to the OAS. The photos will be displayed at OAS until December 15 and then continue to travel around the world until all Cuban political prisoners are released, according to Frank Calzon, executive director of The Center for a Free Cuba, which created the exhibit. The exhibit's other sponsors are the National Democratic Institute, the National Endowment for Democracy, Reporters Without Borders, and People in Need. (US Fed News, 11/12/06)
December 10: About 30 women belonging to the Ladies in White, a group of wives and other relatives of imprisoned dissidents, marched peacefully down 5th Avenue in the Havana neighborhood of Miramar after attending Mass to call for the release of incarcerated opposition members. Their march concluded in front of the Santa Rita Church with shouts of "Long live human rights" and "Freedom for our political prisoners." The Ladies in White also issued a statement in honor of Human Rights Day. ''In Cuba, lamentably, the totalitarian government has kept its people submerged in repression and fear for 48 years to prevent them from expressing their most basic ideals and aspirations,'' the statement said. It called for increased respect for human rights and the release of all political prisoners. Miriam Leiva, one of the Ladies in White, expressed dismay at the harassment of the dissidents in the march in Central Havana. ''They should have the right to protest, just like anywhere else in the world,'' Leiva said. ''It's pitiful that this happened on Human Rights Day.'' (EFE, AP, 10/12/06)
December 10: A mob of some 200 people used force to halt a peaceful march organized by a group of government opponents in a central Havana plaza to commemorate International Human Rights Day. At least three of the dozen or so participants in the march, which was organized by the National Council of the National Patriotic Front, were shoved forcefully into cars and taxis halted by the mob and driven away from the spot along with people who had tried to intervene in the violent disruption of the protest. Three people in the mob tore off a white T-shirt worn by one of the marchers that said "Change." The foreign press were also verbally abused by people who were against the dissidents' protest, with members of the mob calling reporters "mercenaries" and "worms." Shouting "Viva la Revolucion" and "Viva Fidel," the regime's supporters first blocked the marchers from continuing and then started attacking them. Among the dissidents who were taken by force from the area were independent reporter Carlos Rios and regime opponent Darsi Ferrer, two of the people who had organized the march. In addition, according to Elizardo Sanchez, the head of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, independent journalist Julio Aliaga was arrested in El Vedado as he was trying to join the march. (EFE, 10/12/06)
December 9: Cuba closes 2006 with 339 political prisoners, 77 fewer than in 2005, according to a report by the illegal National Coordinating Committee of Prisoners and former-Prisoners of Conscience (CNPP). The CNPP pointed to a “significant” increase in the number of women jailed in the island for political reasons. "At the beginning of 2006, we had three female prisoners," but "we close the year with 28 women convicted of political crimes, 27 of them in prison and one on extra-penal leave," indicated Aida Valdés, the CNPP president. (AFP, 9/12/06)
December 8: The residents of a town near Havana have been honoured by a European human rights groups for defending an opposition activist when Cuba's secret police went to his home to take him away, a Cuban exile organization announced. The Miami-based Cuban Democratic Directorate said the citizens of the municipality of Madruga received the Pedro Luis Boitel Freedom Prize. The directorate said the prize was awarded "to the town of Madruga because on the 2nd of November hundreds of people took to the streets when the political police showed up at the home of human rights activist Eddy Hernandez Arencibia." Hungarian Ambassador to the United States Andras Simonyi presented the prize in a ceremony at the offices of the directorate and Jose Manuel Lopez Montero, a Madruga resident who recently arrived in Miami, accepted the award on behalf of the town. The Pedro Luis Boitel Freedom Award was created by Romanian physicist Gabriel Andreescu in 2001, with the support of eight Central and Eastern European human rights groups, to honor dissidents in Cuba. It takes its name from Pedro Luis Boitel, a Cuban political prisoner who died while on a hunger strike in 1972. (EFE, 8/12/06)
December 7: Nearly one-third of journalists now serving time in prisons around the world published their work on the Internet, the second-largest category behind print journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists said in an analysis. The bulk of Internet journalists in jail -- 49 in total -- shows that "authoritarian states are becoming more determined to control the Internet," said Joel Simon, the New York-based group's executive director. Among the 24 nations that have imprisoned reporters, China topped the list for the eighth consecutive year. Cuba was second with 24 reporters in prison. Nearly all of them had filed their reports to overseas-based Web sites. (AP, 7/12/06)
December 7: Reporters Without Borders called for the immediate and unconditional release of Ahmed Rodríguez Albacia of the Jóvenes sin Censura independent news agency, who was arrested by the State Security police on December 4, in Havana. The organisation also condemned the four-year prison sentence passed on independent journalist Raymundo Perdigón Brito on December 6 for being a “pre-criminal danger to society.” “Rodríguez Albacia and his family have been the victims of constant harassment by the political police since the start of the year,” Reporters Without Borders said. “This young journalist was even detained and ordered to stop his journalistic activities in September. This time the State Security has deprived him of his work material and thrown him in prison. Is any further proof needed that he has been arrested simply for being a journalist?” The organisation added: “We call for his immediate release and that of Perdigón Brito, who has been given a four-year sentence for the same reason, in his case on the false and absurd grounds that he poses a danger to society.” (RWB Press Release, 7/12/06)
December 7: Independent journalist Ahmed Rodríguez Albacia, 21, a reporter with the Youth without Censorship news agency, is in police custody and remains incommunicado. According to the Cuban Human Rights Foundation (FCDH), his relatives have not been allowed any form of contact with him. (Cubanet, 7/12/06)
December 6: Cuban political prisoner, Normando Hernández, was urgently hospitalized after suffering several fainting spells. Some prisoners picked him up and called different human rights organizations within Cuba. Human rights activist Juan Carlos González Leiva spoke by phone with Hernández’ wife, who told him that her husbandwas not well, and that a doctor of the Ministry of the Interior had said that Normando would be moved shortly to the provincial hospital in Camagüey. A large number of prisoners in the facility where Hernández is incarcerated are accusing the State Security of committing a “slow assassination” against the political prisoner. Hernández is serving a 25-year sentence in Kilo 7 prison, Camagüey. (Payo Libre, 7/12/06)
December 6: Hector Palacios, a well-known dissident jailed in a Cuban government crackdown on the opposition in 2003, was released from prison, Elizardo Sanchez, head of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, said. Palacios is the sixteenth prisoner of the so called “Group of 75” who has been released on medical parole. According to opposition activists from Acción Democrática, Palacio’s wife, Gisela Delgado, received a call by State Security officials telling her that her husband would be released that same morning. Delgado has been active demonstrating with the Ladies in White for the release of all political prisoners. Palacios, a sociologist, is well known as one of the leading figures of the dissident movement in Cuba. Palacios joined the dissident movement in 1993 and was director of the illegal Center for Independent Social Studies and advisor to the Round Table for Reflection. He worked as a coordinator for Concilio Cubano, a coalition of dissident groups, was a leader of the All United movement, and played an important role gathering signatures for the Varela Project, launched by Oswaldo Paya and his Christian Liberation Movement. In 1997, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for ''contemptuous'' statements about Fidel Castro. Palacios, 65, said he felt physically “destroyed” but remained “morally strong” in his opposition to the Cuban government. Opposition leaders wrote to Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations, asking him to monitor a human rights demonstration they plan for December 10. (AP, El Nuevo Herald, The Miami Herald, 6,7/12/06)
December 1: Reporters Without Borders [RSF] demonstrated in support of 23 journalists imprisoned in Cuba at the human rights square in Paris. Twenty-three cages were placed in Trocadero Square, each holding a masked inmate, clad in prison dress. Each cage bore the journalist's name, media, sentence and the reasons for their imprisonment. The demonstration was attended by Cuban exiles, including dissident journalists, and drew journalists from the French and foreign press. (BBC, 4/12/06)
