Monday, January 16, 2017

Update on Cuban opposition MCL leader Eduardo Cardet Concepción imprisoned since November 30, 2016

Update on the plight of political prisoners Eduardo Cardet
Imprisoned opposition leader: Dr. Eduardo Cardet Concepción
Regis Iglesias Ramirez is a Cuban political and civil society activist and a former Amnesty International prisoner of conscience. He is currently the spokesman of the Christian Liberation Movement. This past Sunday, January 15, 2017 he sat down and gave a brief interview on the plight of  Eduardo Cardet Concepción, the national coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement. The interview is in Spanish but a summary of the information provided is reproduced below in English.

Eduardo Cardet Concepción was born in Holguin, Cuba on October 25, 1968. He is a Cuban physician, politician, and national coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL). He joined the MCL, one of the most important opposition groups in Cuba, then headed by Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas in the early 2000s.  Eduardo was an active participant in various MCL initiatives aimed at achieving a nonviolent transition in Cuba to democracy. He was a manager of the Varela Project, the Heredia Project, The Peoples Path and  One Cuban, One Vote. Cardet held various responsibilities within the organization and was a member of the movement's coordinating council.  Eduardo was appointed Vice-President of the Christian Democratic Organization of America (ODCA) on August 23, 2013.

Following the extrajudicial killing of Oswaldo Payá  and Harold Cepero on July 22, 2012, the Christian Liberation Movement restructured its leadership and Eduardo Cardet was appointed national coordinator of the movement in November of 2014.

Due to his opposition activity Eduardo Cardet has been arbitrarily detained on several occasions. The last time he was taken prisoner by the Cuban political police was on November 30, 2016, shortly after the death of Fidel Castro. The MCL has denounced that on that occasion he was also badly beaten by Castro's state security agents. The beatings continued following his arrest in the detention center. Eduardo was taken to prison on December 7, 2016, pending a trial with a fabricated charge by the Castro regime to end his work as national coordinator of the  Christian Liberation Movement.

Eduardo Cardet is married with two children, works as a family doctor at the health center in the town of Velasco in Holguín province, where he lives. One year before his appointment as leader of the Christian Liberation Movement he was expelled from his work in retaliation for his opposition activity. However, protests over this punishment measure and popular support led to Eduardo Cardet's reinstatement to his old job.


Christian Liberation Movement: Regis Iglesias, Tony Díaz Sánchez, Eduardo Cardet



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