The price of dignity in totalitarian Cuba

"Totalitarian regimes are the denial of human dignity and the violation of all fundamental rights of our societies built upon democracy and the respect of the rule of law." -Viviane Reding

Ulises González Moreno

Extortion is one of the common practices of the dictatorship that operates in Cuba. Recent examples include trying to force a mother to choose between her son's unjust incarceration and becoming a government informant against innocent human rights defenders and now a labor activist given the choice of spending two years in prison for "predilection to social dangerousness"or once again becoming an informant spying on fellow labor organizers.

This afternoon labor union activist and independent journalist Ivan Hernandez Carillo tweeted about the circumstances surrounding the blackmail of Ulises González Moreno beginning at 12:10pm on December 1, 2012 below is a translation to English with links to the original tweets:

The independent unionist Ulises Gonzalez Moreno was transferred to Valle Grande prison on November 28. A day earlier, on November 27, when the trial ended Ulises Gonzalez, was interrogated by two political police officials. The Two officials of the political police offered to release Ulises González if he collaborated with them, in other words became an informer. Before the offer of freedom in return for informing, Ulises Gonzalez bravely said: "Take me to jail right now, I'm no snitch." The deal offered to Ulises Gonzalez was based on him giving information on dates and sites of our meetings and activities as an informer. Ivan Hernandez concluded his description of the affair observing that, "The attitude of our brother Ulises Gonzalez Moreno was very dignified & brave: 'I will be going to prison but I will not squeal.'"