Spotlight on Cuba: Crackdown on Dissidents

Chronology of Events - January 2008

January 31: Cuba remains the one country in Latin America that represses nearly all forms of political dissent, affirmed Human Rights Watch (HRW) in its annual report. There have been no significant policy changes since Fidel Castro relinquished direct control of the government to his brother Raul Castro in August 2006. “Cubans are systematically denied basic rights to free expression, association, assembly, privacy, movement, and due process of law.” (La Jornada, 1/2/08)

January 31: Well-known Cuban activist, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez (Antunez) told the press he will not acknowledge the home arrest sanction imposed on him by Cuban authorities. The activist denounced an increase of physical violence on the part of the authorities against the dissident movement. “I am challenging that home arrest warrant because I do not obey laws that try to limit individual freedoms”, he said. “I haven’t committed any crime”, he added. (El Nuevo Herald, 1/2/08)

January 30: Elizardo Sanchez, who heads the illegal Cuban Commission for Human Rights, told the press that there’s a new style by the police that tends to repress public activities, and in that sense "they are drawing a line between the dissident behind closed doors and the one who takes to the streets." Referring to a recent violent repression against dissidents in the city of Santa Clara, Sanchez said that when the authorities "start in with beatings, it means there's a certain degree of tension and worry among them," although he believed that this was a purely local phenomenon. Cuba's Communist Party government dismisses the dissidents as "mercenaries" on the payroll of Washington, though some of the regime's opponents criticize the US economic embargo against the island. (EFE, 30/1/08)

January 30: Cuba's banned Assembly to Promote Civil Society reported that several dissidents were beaten and arrested by police in the central province of Santa Clara. Marta Beatriz Roque, leader of the organization, told the press that agents of State Security repressed with beatings a group of seven people trying to pay homage to the hero of Cuban independence, Jose Marti, in Santa Clara city. According to Roque, the opposition's Jorge Luis Garcia, known as "Antunez," and his wife, Iris Perez, who were among the group of dissidents, were arrested and later taken to their home where they remain confined. He added that both were told they will face charges for resisting authorities. According to Roque, the dissident Yansi Ruiz, freed several weeks ago after a year in prison, is still under arrest at a police station for the same incident. Roque said that in January there were almost 30 cases of "arbitrary arrests - arrests lasting several hours - some of them massive, of seven people all at once, or five, six, or three." "The tendency is towards arbitrary arrests lasting a few hours. In this case (the Santa Clara incident) that tendency went one step further, to beatings," the dissident said. (EFE, 30/1/08)

January 28: Blanca Gonzalez, whose son, Normando Hernandez Gonzalez, has become an international symbol of Cuban human-rights abuses, joined Laura Bush in the first lady's gallery when President George W. Bush delivered his final State of the Union address. In a press release, the White House described Gonzalez as ``the mother of Normando Hernandez Gonzalez, a political prisoner suffering under the regime of Fidel and Raul Castro.'' Bush has insisted throughout his presidency on keeping US sanctions against Cuba. His administration has also called for Cuban President Fidel Castro to release all political prisoners. Blanca Gonzalez, herself a political activist, has lived in Miami since being granted political asylum by the US in 2002. (Bloomberg, 28/1/08)

January 27: There are 35 political prisoners in Cuba in very poor health, and authorities now have a novel way of taking dissidents out of circulation for a short time, a leading human rights group said in a report. Out of a total of 290 dissidents and prisoners of conscience in Cuba at the close of 2007, 35 "are in a deplorable state of health inside prisons," the National Coordinator of Current and Former Political Prisoners (CNPP) said in a report issued in Havana. The rights group said there were "315 known prisons (in Cuba), including 56 maximum security facilities, 182 forced-labor camps, 46 minimum security prisons, 18 juvenile detention centers and 13 prisons for women". The report also mentioned "a new method to prevent opposition members from reaching meeting places or diplomatic missions is taking them to a police station for one or two days and then returning them (…) back to their home towns." (News.Com Australia, 27/1/08)

January 25: Hilda Morejón Serantes, mother of Cuban neuro-surgeon Hilda Molina, asked the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, to intercede before the Cuban government so that her daughter can travel to Argentina. The neuro-surgeon has been asking for over a decade, without success, that Havana allow her to visit her son, Roberto Quiñones, and her grandchildren, who reside in Buenos Aires. (EER, 25/1/08)

January 24: US President George W. Bush reinforced his hard line against communist Cuba, accusing Fidel and Raul Castro of repressive policies and urging them to free all political prisoners. Bush took his latest swipe at Cuba's government at a meeting with the wife of jailed Cuban dissident Oscar Elias Biscet, recently awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest US civilian honor. "It's hard for us to imagine what it would be like if we're living in a society as repressive as the society of Fidel and Raul Castro," Bush said sitting in the Oval Office beside Elsa Morejon, who wore a pin bearing her husband's portrait. "My call is for those who believe that the Cuba of today is a hopeful place to recognize the realities," Bush told reporters at the White House.
"This is a country that's got political prisoners who are languishing in jails, who are mistreated in jails. Our message is that political prisoners ought to be free. So should the Cuban people -- free to express themselves, free to realize their God-given talents," he added. Biscet, a doctor and human rights activist, has spent eight years in jail for opposing Cuba's communist government. He was released in 2002 but arrested again weeks later and sentenced for 25 years for acting against Cuba's independence, a common charge against dissidents. (Reuters, 24/1/08)

January 18: According to a report released on January 16, by the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN), at least 325 people were arbitrarily arrested-- most of them were held by the authorities for some hours or a few days. Manuel Cuesta Morúa, spokesman for the Arco Progresista dissident coalition, said that such "warnings" from the authorities are on the increase. "The limit still appears to be the street. The authorities are determined not to allow any public demonstration that might get out of hand," he told the press. According to CCDHRN, "if the government were to apply, without discrimination on ideological grounds, the provisions of Article 58, sections 1 and 2 of the current criminal code which establishes the right to conditional release, nearly a hundred political prisoners could be freed from prison immediately." The general prison population, estimated at 80,000 in the absence of official figures, could also be reduced by applying this provision. "Every time we see someone convicted of ‘dangerousness’ we know they are technically innocent because they have committed no crime," Elizardo Sánchez said. "Dangerousness" means someone is suspected to have the potential to commit a crime. It is a category that covers thousands of men and women who have been arrested. (IPS, 18/1/08)

January 16: Poet and journalist Raúl Rivero and sociologist Héctor Palacios denounced in Madrid the serious predicament of many Cuban political prisoners. Rivero and Palacios, both members of the group of 75 dissidents imprisoned in 2003, attended at the Madrid Press Association head office the presentation of the latest report of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Conciliation (CCDHRN). (EER, 17/1/08)

January 16: The number of Cubans in prison for political reasons dropped in 2007 but Communist authorities continue to arrest people arbitrarily and deny basic civil rights, the country's main rights watchdog said. There were 234 political prisoners in Cuba at the end of 2007, down from 283 a year earlier, the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation said. However, it reported no improvement in Cuba's human rights record since ailing leader Fidel Castro handed over power to his brother Raul due to illness in July 2006. "This sort of provisional government has done nothing to change the very bad situation of civil, political and economic rights that has existed in Cuba for more than four decades," the commission said, adding that authorities still deny freedom of expression, assembly and travel. Sanchez's group said there were at least 325 political arrests in Cuba last year and most of the detainees were released after a few hours or days without charges. Headed by veteran rights activist Elizardo Sanchez, the group is illegal but is tolerated by the government. (The New York Times, 16/1/08)

January 15: Opposition activist Yanci Ruiz Martínez was released after serving out a one-year prison term. He received charges of posing "a dangerous threat (to society)," after being accused by the police and the State Security service. (Cubanet, 25/1/08)
 
January 12: Two members of the illegal opposition group Cuban Human Rights Foundation were detained by the police for several hours. Both were later released. (Cubanet, 17/1/08)

January 11: German human rights advocates warned about the deteriorating health of Cuban political prisoner José Luis García Paneque and passed along his family’s request that the international community demand his immediate release. As the German NGO International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) indicated, the Cuban doctor and political prisoner’s condition “is most alarming” and his life is in danger. (EFE, 11/1/08)

January 10: Several dissidents were arrested in Havana, as they were ready to distribute flyers commemorating the first anniversary of the death of human rights activist Miguel Valdés Tamayo. They were later released. (Radio Martí, 10/1/08)

January 6: Eleven-year-old Rocio de Jesus Viso Bello, whose independent journalist father has been jailed by the government, donned a red-and-white suit and handed out dolls, toy cars, school supplies and DVD players to about 40 children of imprisoned dissidents. Held in the cramped living room of Laura Pollan, wife of political prisoner Hector Maseda, the event was sponsored by the Cuban American National Foundation, a Miami exile group dedicated to undermining the Castro government. "Today is a day of happiness for children who have to stand so much suffering the other 365 days of the year," Pollan said. (AP, 7/1/08)

January 2: Former Argentine President Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) is considering a trip to Cuba in March to mediate in the case of Cuban doctor Hilda Molina, who has unsuccessfully tried for years to visit her family in Buenos Aires. Cuban authorities haven’t allowed Molina to leave the country. The trip falls within the framework of ongoing talks between Kirchner and the Cuban government. (El Nuevo Herald, 2/1/08)

January 1: After more than a decade of painstaking research by two Cuban exiles with the non-profit group Cuba Archive, for the first time their results are available in a searchable database on the Web. The Truth and Memory Project database was launched on January 1, thanks to a $52,000 grant from Freedom House, an advocacy organization founded by Eleanor Roosevelt. ''This is one more way to shed light on something a lot of people do not know about,'' said Jorge A. García Mas, who arrived in the United States from Cuba in 1999. ``The first thing I did was to look for my family's names. How is it not going to hurt to see their names on there?'' García lost several members of his family in July 1994, when the tugboat “13 de Marzo”, loaded with would-be refugees, was rammed and sank. The database includes García's son, four in-laws, five nieces and nephews, and three cousins. It also chronicles the deaths of people shot by firing squad, killed in prison, drowned at sea, killed by terrorist bombs and other causes. ''The nature of the crimes is horrifying,'' said Maria Werlau, executive director of Cuba Archive. 'You don't need to say anything. You don't need to editorialize. Here it is. It's like that news network that says: `We report it. You decide.' '' (The Miami Herald, 4/1/08)

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