Prisoners in Cuba

In the recent "Assembly to Promote a Civil Society" that met in protest against Castro and his oppression an outline was given for plans of reform. One point was entitled REGARDING POLITICAL PRISONERS.

Here are the points:

§ Ratify the position that has always been sustained by the Assembly to Promote Civil Society, which demands the immediate liberation of all political prisoners, without lists, timetables, nor exclusions.

§ Claim that those liberations be truly unconditional and without forced exile, which must be granted through an irrevocable legal order.

§ Consider that the issue of political prisoners must continue to be first in the agenda of any activity of the APSC, and that until the last prisoner is set free, monitoring of their situation must not cease. The actions to demand their freedom and the protests for the abuses they suffer must continue.

§ Start from the foundation, that in order to prevent the liberation of actual political prisoners to become a mockery, it is essential that no more citizen incarcerations are produced for the mere fact of peacefully expressing their discrepancies with the ruling system.

Please note the line: it is essential that no more citizen incarcerations are produced for the mere fact of peacefully expressing their discrepancies with the ruling system.

Hence, meaning that Cuban citizens are being arrested and sent to jail for peaceful disagreements with fidelito.

And what kind of jail, pray tell, do they go to? Unfortunately, there are no official UN reports on this, because Cuba won't allow the UN in to inspect them. Thus the reallity is obfuscated (Makes one wonder what IS Cuba hiding?)

Thus, the only way to really know, is to see through the eyes of the Prisoners:

Elias Biscet:
"The characteristics of the cell violate the law," Biscet, 42, wrote in a November letter. "There are no windows. There are only walls. Always in darkness. The sky can't be seen."

Biscet has spent weeks at a time in a small cell, sleeping on a thin mattress and using a hole in the floor as a toilet, said his wife, Elsa Morejon. The heat in Biscet's cell was so intense he developed skin rashes. He has lost about 40 pounds.

"I haven't seen my wife and my father in more than four months," he wrote, saying most family visits had been denied."

Frómeta Cuenca:
"Me decomisaron las pocas ropas que me quedaban. Anteriormente me juzgaron tres veces por desacato. Me llevaron a la celda en calzoncillos y así me tuvieron casi cinco meses.

Ariel Sigler:
"Los presos duermen sobre colchones de malangueta (una yerba que crece a la orilla de ciertos ríos), las camas no alcanzan para todos, muchos presos tienen que dormir en el suelo porque se encierran más personas en los cubículos de las que cabe en ellos. Yo me encontraba en la Sección 6 del Edificio 2".

"En los meses que yo estuve encerrado allí sólo una vez fumigaron para las chinches. Hay ratas en grandes cantidades y cucarachas también.

Marcel Ponce:
"Me sacaron de la celda esposado atrás (o sea con las manos en la espalda), me tiraron contra el piso de cabeza rompiéndome ésta en dos lugares. Luego, en el suelo, me cayeron a manguerazos y a patadas. Me golpearon nueve guardias en total. Todos obedecían las órdenes del Mayor Troy, jefe del orden interior de Valle Grande".

THESE ARE NOT RAPISTS. THESE ARE NOT MURDERS. THESE ARE NOT THIEVES.

Their one and only crime was to disagree, peacefully mind you, with the Cuban government. And for that God given right to have an opinion. A right which is upheld in the UN declaration of Human Rights. A right which is ignored in Cuba and labeled "Counter Revolutionary," these people are arrested, tortured, beaten, abused and treated like dog shit for threatening disloyality to Fidelito. Thus making them Prisoner of Conscience

So when you hear la gran HP of Amnesty: Irene Khan, characterize the US base in Guantanamo as “the gulag of our times.” Please keep in mind that at least the US allows AI and other lefty-touchy-feely-groups to view their prisions. Cuba is hiding GREATER attrocities.

And my message to Irene: Next time Amnesty drops by Cuba, and after inspecting the Guantanamo base prision, try skipping tourist hotels afterwards and demand a tour of Boniato.

Links:
Free-biscet.org
Cubanet.org