"Long live human rights! With my blood I wrote to you so
that this be saved as evidence of the savagery that we of the Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoners [movement] are subjected to and are victims of." - Orlando Zapata Tamayo, letter smuggled out April of 2004*
Today at 3:00pm at our Lady of Charity in Miami, better known to Cubans as "La Ermita de la Caridad," a nun read out names of those who had died, including Bishop Agustín Román and Orlando Zapata Tamayo, and asked parishioners to pray for them.
Father Fernando E. Hería during his Homily at the 3:00pm Mass reflected on the nonviolent doctrine of the Church and the martyrdom of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, ten years ago on February 23, 2010.
A 24 x 36 inch poster of Orlando Zapata Tamayo was on display in the front pew of the Church.
It is necessary to revisit the last eight years of Orlando Zapata's life to understand why his death made such a profound impact inside and outside of Cuba, and is remembered today. The following chronology is based on a 2010 handout by the Cuban Democratic Directorate, that documented Orlando's case closely.
It was ten years ago at 3:00pm on February 23, 2010 that it was announced that Orlando Zapata Tamayo had died. This humble bricklayer who became a human rights defender, spent nearly seven years being mistreated and tortured by the Castro regime.
He had worked alongside both Oscar Elias Biscet, and Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas on projects that sought to advance the cause of human rights in Cuba with Biscet's human rights circles and Payá's Varela Project.
Orlando Zapata Tamayo was arbitrarily detained by the secret police on December 6, 2002 together with other activists, including Dr. Biscet, to stop them participating in a human rights workshop at the home of human rights defender Raúl Arencibia Fajardo. Three months later on March 8, 2003 Orlando was released.
Twelve days later on March 20, 2003 Orlando Zapata was re-arrested in the midst of the Black Cuban Spring when over 75 activists and independent journalists were jailed during a crackdown and sentenced to long prison terms. He had been taken part in a fast and vigil demanding the freedom of Dr. Biscet, who had remained jailed since the December 6, 2002 arrest.
Amnesty International reported that on October 20, 2003 Orlando was dragged along the floor of Combinado del Este Prison by prison officials after requesting medical attention, leaving his back full of lacerations. Orlando managed to smuggle a letter out that was published in April of 2004:
This did not silence him. When prison officials chose to attack his human dignity, and engaged in acts of physical and psychological torture, Orlando Zapata would respond with nonviolent defiance. He carried out hunger strikes within the prisons he was transferred to. The regime's response to his nonviolent defiance was to pile on prison years to his sentence. Between May 2004 and December 2009 they carried out nine trials without due process guarantees for a total sentence of 25 years and six months.
What we know is a partial accounting of what he suffered. On July 26, 2008 in the Holguin Provincial Prison he was brutally beaten, on the orders of the prison director, Major Orelvis Miraldea, and Orlando's body was covered in bruises, but especially suffered blows to the head that caused a intracranial hematoma in the lower part of his brain, and a year later he needed to be operated on for this brain injury.
Despite this, because of his refusal to be re-educated and silenced, the beatings continued on August 29, 2009, September 24, 2009, and a more severe beating on November 26, 2009.
On December 3, 2009 he is transferred to Kilo 8 in Camaguey, a maximum security prison. Upon his arrival the food that his mother had turned into him the day before was confiscated, and they wanted to force him to wear the uniform of a common prisoner. Orlando refused and begins his last hunger strike.
Major Filiberto Hernandez Luis, director of Kilo 8 prison, retaliates placing him in isolation without clothes and sleeping on the floor. Over 18 days they deny him water in an effort force him to end his hunger strike, and break his spirit. On January 3rd and again on January 6th he is taken to Amalia Simoni Hospital and undergoes intravenous rehydration and is returned to his isolation cell.
On January 21, 2010 he is transferred to the Amalia Simoni Hospital prison ward where he is kept under strong air conditioning unit with a thin blanket that causes him to develop pneumonia, aggravating his health situation. At the same time on several occasions members of the political police film Orlando Zapata in his hospital bed.
On February 16, 2010 he is transferred to Havana in a military operation, and his mother is not allowed to accompany him in the ambulance. This is the last time that she sees her sons conscious.
On February 20, 2010 after strong protests by his mother to the secret police, she is able to see Orlando at the Combinado del Este prison ward, but he unconscious and intubated.
On February 22, 2010 she is called to a late night meeting with doctors, where she is filmed without her knowledge. There she is told for the first and only time that her son is alive thanks to an artificial respirator. ( However, in a later article in the official newspaper Granma it is reported that he had been on a respirator for days.)
On February 23, 2010 around mid-day, the secret police and military doctors in form Reina Luisa Tamayo, Orlando's mother, that he is being transferred to Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital in a critical state. He dies three hours later at 3:00pm according to the information by the political police to his mother.
Following his death the Castro regime sought to destroy Orlando's reputation and went as far as to deny that he had been a dissident. This campaign failed, because even the dictatorship's own propaganda had recognized his activism, published a picture of him with other activists and attacked him years earlier.
This extrajudicial killing turned out to be a very costly one for the regime. Ten years later protests were carried out at the Embassy in Washington DC, in Miami, and in Cuba. It is most likely not a coincidence that the hacking of the University of Havana home page by Anonymous was carried out on the ten year anniversary of the death of this Cuban human rights defender.
They killed his body, but they did not obtain his obedience, and his spirit of defiance lives on.
Where were you the day Orlando Zapata Tamayo died? Please write down what you remember in the comments section.
Today at 3:00pm at our Lady of Charity in Miami, better known to Cubans as "La Ermita de la Caridad," a nun read out names of those who had died, including Bishop Agustín Román and Orlando Zapata Tamayo, and asked parishioners to pray for them.
Father Fernando E. Hería during his Homily at the 3:00pm Mass reflected on the nonviolent doctrine of the Church and the martyrdom of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, ten years ago on February 23, 2010.
A 24 x 36 inch poster of Orlando Zapata Tamayo was on display in the front pew of the Church.
It is necessary to revisit the last eight years of Orlando Zapata's life to understand why his death made such a profound impact inside and outside of Cuba, and is remembered today. The following chronology is based on a 2010 handout by the Cuban Democratic Directorate, that documented Orlando's case closely.
It was ten years ago at 3:00pm on February 23, 2010 that it was announced that Orlando Zapata Tamayo had died. This humble bricklayer who became a human rights defender, spent nearly seven years being mistreated and tortured by the Castro regime.
 |
| Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas holds up a flier with Orlando Zapata Tamayo's photo |
Orlando Zapata Tamayo was arbitrarily detained by the secret police on December 6, 2002 together with other activists, including Dr. Biscet, to stop them participating in a human rights workshop at the home of human rights defender Raúl Arencibia Fajardo. Three months later on March 8, 2003 Orlando was released.
Twelve days later on March 20, 2003 Orlando Zapata was re-arrested in the midst of the Black Cuban Spring when over 75 activists and independent journalists were jailed during a crackdown and sentenced to long prison terms. He had been taken part in a fast and vigil demanding the freedom of Dr. Biscet, who had remained jailed since the December 6, 2002 arrest.
 |
| Orlando Zapata photographed with prominent dissidents |
"My dear brothers in the internal opposition in Cuba. I have many things to say to you, but I did not want to do it with paper and ink, because I hope to go to you one day when our country is free without the Castro dictatorship. Long live human rights, with my blood I wrote to you so that this be saved as evidence of the savagery we of the Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoners [movement] are subjected to and are victims of."*Orlando would remain jailed without charges or a trial. On May 18, 2004 Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Virgilio Marante Güelmes, and Raúl Arencibia Fajardo were each sentenced to three years in prison for contempt for authority, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in a one-day trial.
This did not silence him. When prison officials chose to attack his human dignity, and engaged in acts of physical and psychological torture, Orlando Zapata would respond with nonviolent defiance. He carried out hunger strikes within the prisons he was transferred to. The regime's response to his nonviolent defiance was to pile on prison years to his sentence. Between May 2004 and December 2009 they carried out nine trials without due process guarantees for a total sentence of 25 years and six months.
What we know is a partial accounting of what he suffered. On July 26, 2008 in the Holguin Provincial Prison he was brutally beaten, on the orders of the prison director, Major Orelvis Miraldea, and Orlando's body was covered in bruises, but especially suffered blows to the head that caused a intracranial hematoma in the lower part of his brain, and a year later he needed to be operated on for this brain injury.
Despite this, because of his refusal to be re-educated and silenced, the beatings continued on August 29, 2009, September 24, 2009, and a more severe beating on November 26, 2009.
 |
| Reina Luisa Tamayo, with her son's blood stained shirt |
Major Filiberto Hernandez Luis, director of Kilo 8 prison, retaliates placing him in isolation without clothes and sleeping on the floor. Over 18 days they deny him water in an effort force him to end his hunger strike, and break his spirit. On January 3rd and again on January 6th he is taken to Amalia Simoni Hospital and undergoes intravenous rehydration and is returned to his isolation cell.
On January 21, 2010 he is transferred to the Amalia Simoni Hospital prison ward where he is kept under strong air conditioning unit with a thin blanket that causes him to develop pneumonia, aggravating his health situation. At the same time on several occasions members of the political police film Orlando Zapata in his hospital bed.
On February 16, 2010 he is transferred to Havana in a military operation, and his mother is not allowed to accompany him in the ambulance. This is the last time that she sees her sons conscious.
On February 20, 2010 after strong protests by his mother to the secret police, she is able to see Orlando at the Combinado del Este prison ward, but he unconscious and intubated.
On February 22, 2010 she is called to a late night meeting with doctors, where she is filmed without her knowledge. There she is told for the first and only time that her son is alive thanks to an artificial respirator. ( However, in a later article in the official newspaper Granma it is reported that he had been on a respirator for days.)
On February 23, 2010 around mid-day, the secret police and military doctors in form Reina Luisa Tamayo, Orlando's mother, that he is being transferred to Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital in a critical state. He dies three hours later at 3:00pm according to the information by the political police to his mother.
 |
| Castro regime book “The Dissidents” mentioned OZT as an opponent. |
This extrajudicial killing turned out to be a very costly one for the regime. Ten years later protests were carried out at the Embassy in Washington DC, in Miami, and in Cuba. It is most likely not a coincidence that the hacking of the University of Havana home page by Anonymous was carried out on the ten year anniversary of the death of this Cuban human rights defender.
They killed his body, but they did not obtain his obedience, and his spirit of defiance lives on.
Where were you the day Orlando Zapata Tamayo died? Please write down what you remember in the comments section.
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