Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter

Living in truth and rebuilding Cuba's brutalized society

2012-01-27T19:03:00.014-05:00

Resisting humiliation and defending dignity in totalitarian Cuba

Other famous men, those of much talk and few deeds, soon evaporate. Action is the dignity of greatness. - José Julián Martí Pérez

This morning shared a conversation/panel at the launch of the Roots of Hope event "Avenida Cuba" at Miami-Dade College Wolfson campus with Cuban rapper Yrak Saenz, a skater named Rene and discussed music, culture and civic movements. Before participating on the panel also listened to a Cuban artist named David D Omni visiting from the island who spoke of Satyagraha and living in truth. Had never met any of them before. Prior to the start of the conversation I distributed the World Youth Movement for Democracy statement on the death of Cuban prisoner of conscience Wilman Villar Mendoza. Focusing on Cuba and Cuban civil society through a social-cultural focus is an enriching experience that led to the following reflection and much of it ended up in the presentation made by yours truly today but what follows, hopefully, is a bit more developed.

Wilman Villar Mendoza, a member of the opposition group Union Patriotica de Cuba, was detained after participating in a nonviolent protest in Contramaestre,Cuba on November 2, 2011. He was sentenced to four years in prison following a trial on November 24, 2011 that lasted less than an hour in which there was no due process he was immediately taken to Aguadores prison. Wilman began his hunger strike to protest his unjust trial and imprisonment that same day. Cuban authorities transferred him to a punishment cell without clothes or water in an effort to break his spirit and force him to end the hunger strike.

It was only when Wilman's health failed and it looked like he would die that prison officials transferred him to a hospital on January 15, 2012 (63 days after he had initiated the hunger strike). Wilman Villar Mendoza died four days later at 6:30pm on January 19, 2012 at the age of 31. He left behind a wife and two daughters ages 5 and 6.

Why would a young man with a family give up his life in a protest over an unjust four year prison sentence? Imagine for a moment that you have participated in a nonviolent protest and a day or two later someone comes to your door and arrests you. In a sham trial that takes less than an hour you are sentenced to four years in prison.

Think about it: four years in prison for exercising a fundamental human right. 1,460 days in prison separated from your family and housed with violent common criminals for carrying the Cuban flag in a nonviolent protest demanding a better life for Cubans with more freedom. 35,040 hours in a dark, filthy and dank prison cell to reflect on this outrage. Cuban prisoners of conscience arrested in 2003 spent more than double that time in prison. One of them Orlando Zapata Tamayo also died on a hunger strike on February 23, 2010 protesting his unjust imprisonment and mistreatment by prison authorities.

It is not just a Cuban phenomenon.

A fruit vendor, the Tunisian, Mohamed Bouazizi, doused himself with paint thinner and lit a match on December 17, 2010, setting himself on fire in front of the local governor’s office after the authorities confiscated his fruit, beat him and refused to return his property. His desperate act set off street clashes that ultimately toppled the country’s autocratic ruler, but also brought down autocrats in Egypt and Libya while igniting mass protests that threaten the rule of autocrats in Bahrain and Syria.

It is not the first time that a young man has self-immolated himself to defend his dignity as a human being. 20 year old Czech student, Jan Palach set himself on fire, in Wenceslas Square, in Prague on January 16, 1969. He died three days later on January 19, 1969, but before he died he spoke to the doctors and nurses who cared for him about why he had set himself on fire. Jaroslava Moserova was a doctor on duty when Jan was rushed into the hospital and still remembers what he told her:

"It was not so much in opposition to the Soviet occupation, but the demoralization which was setting in, that people were not only giving up, but giving in. And he wanted to stop that demoralization. I think the people in the street, the multitude of people in the street, silent, with sad eyes, serious faces, which when you looked at those people you understood that everyone understands, all the decent people who were on the verge of making compromises."

What drove these men to acts of self-immolation? They were acts of defiance against not only their personal humiliation but in defense of the collective dignity of a people. Because despots know that such an act of desperation and outrage over a profound injustice can resonate with a populace and end their rule that regime's fear them, even posthumously, and attempt to slander their memory.

Vaclav Havel, the Czech playwright, dissident, and future president wrote about the impact of the daily humiliations that exist in a totalitarian regime in a 1975 open letter to Dr. Husak, the General Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party at the time:

If every day someone takes orders in silence from an incompetent superior, if every day he solemnly performs ritual acts which he privately finds ridiculous, if he unhesitatingly gives answers to questionnaires which are contrary to his real opinions and is prepared to deny himself in public, if he sees no difficulty in feigning sympathy or even affection where, in fact, he feels only indifference or aversion, it still does not mean that he has entirely lost the use of one of the basic human senses, namely, the sense of dignity.

On the contrary: even if they never speak of it, people have a very acute appreciation of the price they have paid for outward peace and quiet: the permanent humiliation of their human dignity. The less direct resistance they put up to it comforting themselves by driving it from their mind and deceiving themselves with the thought that it is of no account, or else simply gritting their teeth-the deeper the experience etches itself into their emotional memory. The man who can resist humiliation can quickly forget it; but the man who can long tolerate it must long remember it. In actual fact, then, nothing remains forgotten. All the fear one has endured, the dissimulation one has been forced into, all the painful and degrading buffoonery, and, worst of all, perhaps, the feeling of having displayed one's cowardice-all this settles and accumulates somewhere in the bottom of our social consciousness, quietly fermenting.

Clearly, this is no healthy situation. Left untreated, the abscesses suppurate; the pus cannot escape from the body, and the malady spreads throughout the organism. The natural human emotion is denied the process of objectivization and instead, caged up over long periods in the emotional memory, is gradually deformed into a sick cramp, into a toxic substance not unlike the carbon monoxide produced by incomplete combustion.

No wonder, then, that when the crust cracks and the lava of life rolls out, there appear not only well-considered attempts to rectify old wrongs, not only searchings for truth and for reforms matching life's needs, but also symptoms of bilious hatred, vengeful wrath, and a feverish desire for immediate compensation for all the degradation endured.

Wilman Villar Mendoza, Mohamed Bouazizi, and Jan Palach were three men who resisted humiliation and defended not only their own dignity but that of their respective countries. The uprisings in reaction to the death of Mohamed Bouazizi were almost immediate while in the case of Jan Palach took place twenty years following his death:

“On the 20th anniversary of Palach's death, protests in memory of Palach escalated into what would be called "Palach Week". The series of anticommunist demonstrations in Prague between 15 and 21 January 1989 were suppressed by the police. Palach Week is considered one of the catalyst demonstrations which preceded the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia.”

In the case of totalitarian regimes like Czechoslovakia and Cuba the damage to society is both widespread and profound. Totalitarian regimes by definition attempt not only to monopolize political life but all aspects of life. For example the arts and music are subjected to political control and widespread censorship. Although some of it may survive being circulated in the underground or on the black market the average citizen will be denied essential musical and artistic works based on political censorship.

In the case of Cuba, Eric Silva Brenneman reported in the book Shoot the singer!: music censorship today that "[b]etween the 1960s and 1970s, the island performed a cultural genocide the consequences of which are still difficult to calculate today," and how there is increasing concern within the international music community that post-revolution generations are growing up without knowing or hearing these censored musicians and that this could lead to a loss of Cuban identity in future generations.

In the case of Czechoslovakia that obtained in the Velvet Revolution of 1989 the aftermath exposed the societal harm from decades of totalitarian rule and were summarized by President Havel in his 1990 New Years Address:

We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension, and for many of us they represented only psychological peculiarities, or they resembled gone-astray greetings from ancient times, a little ridiculous in the era of computers and spaceships. Only a few of us were able to cry out loudly that the powers that be should not be all-powerful and that the special farms, which produced ecologically pure and top-quality food just for them, should send their produce to schools, children's homes and hospitals if our agriculture was unable to offer them to all.
The previous regime - armed with its arrogant and intolerant ideology - reduced man to a force of production, and nature to a tool of production. In this it attacked both their very substance and their mutual relationship. It reduced gifted and autonomous people, skillfully working in their own country, to the nuts and bolts of some monstrously huge, noisy and stinking machine, whose real meaning was not clear to anyone. It could not do more than slowly but inexorably wear out itself and all its nuts and bolts.
When I talk about the contaminated moral atmosphere, I am not talking just about the gentlemen who eat organic vegetables and do not look out of the plane windows. I am talking about all of us. We had all become used to the totalitarian system and accepted it as an unchangeable fact and thus helped to perpetuate it. In other words, we are all - though naturally to differing extents - responsible for the operation of the totalitarian machinery. None of us is just its victim. We are all also its co-creators.

It is as if they had fallen into a deep sleep and only for the brave actions of a few who had awakened and shouted out for the others to wake up that the totalitarian nightmare finally ended in Czechoslovakia. Some of the screams, such as Jan Palach's immolation, were louder than the others.

Panel/Conversation on Friday, January 27, 2012 at Miami Dade College Wolfson Campus

One of the speakers on Friday told me that the majority of the Cuban people are still asleep but that there was an active minority that was wide awake. Cuba's civic movements are at the heart of both the rebirth of pluralism and the regeneration of brutalized and damaged Cuban society. Some of the members of this movement like Pedro Luis Botiel, Orlando Zapata Tamayo and Wilman Villar Mendoza have shouted more loudly than others for the Cuban people to awaken. Their examples of resistance to the constant humiliations of the regime and their defense of dignity are the basis for a Cuban democratic awakening that will wash away a half century of totalitarian rule.

Tahrir Square: One Year Later

2012-01-25T20:49:00.003-05:00

Tahrir Square, January 25, 2012

As an International Witness to the first and third round of the Egyptian Parliamentary elections I had an opportunity to visit Tahrir Square in later November 2o11 and again in early January 2012.

Walking into Tahrir Square on November 25, 2011

Walking amongst the protesters and meeting with them in the tents at the heart of the square to listen to their desires for the future of Egypt. Seeing their defiance in the face of the heavy military and police presence and the real danger they faced in clashes that ended with unarmed demonstrators shot to death one could admire their courage.

Despite all of this, and at the same time because of the continuing systematic denial of human rights, today January 25, 2012 tens of thousands of Egyptians took to Tahrir Square to protest continued military rule chanting slogans among them: "Egypt is a state not a barracks"; "Down with military rule!"; "Our demands are the same freedom and justice!;" and "Civilian, civilian we don't want it militaristic!"

Massive march to Tahrir, one of the largest in Egypt's history on January 25, 2012

Since the departure of Mubarak one year ago the human rights situation under the military has deteriorated. Daniel Williams from Human Rights Watch in an oped published today offers an overview of human rights in Egypt over the past year:

...Mubarak's repressive legacy has been preserved and even strengthened. SCAF rules in his place and has indicated it should remain a power behind the scenes, as it has for the 60 years since the overthrow of the country's monarchy.

Egyptians still live under the emergency law –in place since the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981 – that permits bans on public assembly, indefinite detention without charge, prosecution in special courts that allow no appeal process and that are notorious for reliance on confessions obtained under torture. On Tuesday, SCAF's chieftain, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, partially lifted the 30-year state of emergency but said Egypt would continue to apply the emergency law to cases of "thuggery." Tantawi's gesture is far from sufficient. In the last year, military tribunals have convicted hundreds of peaceful protesters on charges of thuggery.

During almost a year in power, SCAF has liberally referred civilians to military courts, another practice of the Mubarak years, though under him it was reserved for so-called exceptional cases. Sometimes the magistrates have announced a verdict before a trial began.

The military has arbitrarily arrested and convicted peaceful protesters, some of whom remain imprisoned. Measures that date from Britain's early 20th century domination of Egypt ban assemblies of more than five people "that threaten the public peace."

Although by international standards, lethal force should be used only when strictly necessary to protect life, under current Egyptian law, police – who are effectively under SCAF control –possess wide scope for shooting at demonstrators. The minister of interior has broad discretion to decide on use of weapons and what warnings need be given demonstrators before firing on them. On Jan. 6, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, an independent human rights organization, denounced a statement by the interior minister that police will get bonuses for shooting "thugs," government shorthand for demonstrators.

Police regulations are bad enough, but the actions of security forces – both police and military – have been abominable. In October, soldiers ran over demonstrators with armored cars and shot them, killing 27 marchers at a Christian rally held to protest the burning of a church. In November, at least 40 demonstrators were killed by anti-riot forces during unrest in and around Tahrir Square, the epicenter of protest. Police routinely beat demonstrators, women included. Human Rights Watch has documented torture and abuse of detainees by soldiers. Military personnel carried out abusive "virginity tests" on women in detention. Servile state media demonize opposition groups and non-governmental organizations as subversive tools of dark foreign forces.

Laws endure that make citizens vulnerable to prosecution for "insulting" speech or words "harmful" to morals or tantamount to changing the existing political order. In March, SCAF added a new wrinkle to restrictions on speech and assembly by criminalizing strikes and demonstrations "that impede public works." In April, a military court sentenced young blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad to three years in prison for "insulting the military establishment" when he criticized army rule on his blog and Facebook page. SCAF said last weekend that Nabil would be pardoned and released along with more than 1,900 other prisoners convicted in military trials. It was a gesture in advance of the Jan. 25 holiday; Nabil shouldn't have been arrested and convicted in the first place.

Harsh repression and raids on human rights organizations in Egypt continue but despite this Egyptians are unafraid. All eyes on Egypt and in solidarity with Egyptian democrats seeking to restore civilian rule after 60 years of military rule.

International Human Rights Commission Condemns Death of Wilmar Villar in Cuba

2012-01-23T16:31:00.005-05:00

IACHR Condemns Death of Wilmar Villar in Cuba

January 23, 2012

Washington, D.C. — The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) regrets and condemns the death of Cuban dissident Wilmar Villar, who died after a hunger strike. The IACHR expresses its condolences and solidarity with his next of kin.

According to information received, Wilmar Villar was a member of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unión Patriótica de Cuba), an opposition group in Cuba. On November 24, 2010, he was condemned to prison by a Cuban tribunal that found him guilty of “libel, resistance and assault.” It was informed that Wilmar Villar started a hunger strike in protest against the process and the sentence, which he called “unfair.”

On February 26, 2010, the IACHR regretted and condemned the death of Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who died of starvation after 85 days on a hunger strike. He had been detained in March 2003 and sentenced to prison in a trial held behind closed doors, which lasted no longer than a day.

The Commission reiterates that restrictions to political rights and to freedom of expression and the dissemination of thought; the lack of elections; and the lack of independence of the judiciary create a permanent situation in Cuba in which the fundamental rights of its citizens are violated. The Commission once again urges the State to carry out the reforms that are necessary in accordance with its international human rights obligations.

A principal, autonomous body of the Organization of American States (OAS), the IACHR derives its mandate from the OAS Charter and the American Convention on Human Rights. The Inter-American Commission has a mandate to promote respect for human rights in the region and acts as a consultative body to the OAS in this matter. The Commission is composed of seven independent members who are elected in an individual capacity by the OAS General Assembly and who do not represent their countries of origin or residence.

Related Links
Press Release 22/10: IACHR Condemns Death of Orlando Zapata in Cuba

No. 007/1

Human Rights Watch World Report 2012: Cuba

2012-01-23T00:54:00.003-05:00

Events of 2011

Cuba remains the only country in Latin America that represses virtually all forms of political dissent. In 2011 Raúl Castro’s government continued to enforce political conformity using short-term detentions, beatings, public acts of repudiation, forced exile, and travel restrictions.

In 2011 the Cuban government freed the remaining 12 political prisoners from the “group of 75” dissidents—human rights defenders, journalists, and labor leaders who were sentenced in 2003 in summary trials for exercising their basic rights—having forced most into exile in exchange for their freedom. Also in 2011 the government sentenced at least seven more dissidents to prison for exercising their fundamental rights, and human rights groups on the island said dozens more remain in prison.

The government increasingly relied on arbitrary arrests and short-term detentions to restrict the basic rights of its critics, including the right to assemble and move about freely. Cuba’s government also pressured dissidents to choose between exile and continued repression or even imprisonment, leading scores to leave the country with their families during 2011.

Political Prisoners

Cubans who criticize the government are subject to criminal charges. They are exempt from due process guarantees, such as the right to a defense or fair and public hearings by a competent, independent, and impartial tribunal. In practice, courts are “subordinated” to the executive and legislative branches, denying meaningful judicial protection.

Dozens of political prisoners remain in Cuban prisons, according to respected human rights groups on the island. In June 2011 the Cuban Council of Human Rights Rapporteurs issued a list of 43 prisoners whom it said were still incarcerated for political reasons. In May 2011, four dissidents from Havana—Luis Enrique Labrador, David Piloto, Walfrido Rodríguez, and Yordani Martínez—were prosecuted on charges of contempt and public disorder for demonstrating in Havana's Revolutionary Square and throwing leaflets with slogans such as “Down with the Castros.” They were sentenced to three to five years in prison. The council estimates that there are many more political prisoners whose cases they cannot document because the government does not let independent national or international human rights groups access its prisons.

Arbitrary Detentions and Short-Term Imprisonment

In addition to criminal prosecution, Raul Castro's government has increasingly relied on arbitrary detention to harass and intimidate individuals who exercise their fundamental rights. The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation documented 2,074 arbitrary detentions by security forces in 2010, and 2,224 between January and August 2011. The detentions are often used preemptively to prevent individuals from participating in meetings or events viewed as critical of the government.

Security officers hardly ever present arrest orders to justify detentions, and threaten detainees with criminal prosecution if they continue to participate in “counterrevolutionary” activities. Victims of such arbitrary arrests said they were held incommunicado for several hours to several days, often at police stations. Some received an official warning (acta de advertencia), which prosecutors may later use in criminal trials to show a pattern of delinquent behavior. Dissidents said these warnings aimed to dissuade them from participating in future activities considered critical of the government.

For example, on July 24, 2011, state security agents arbitrarily detained 28 human rights activists for 4 to 30 hours in Palma Soriano, Santiago de Cuba province, when they tried to participate in a religious service to pray for the release of political prisoners.

Forced Exile

The death of political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo in February 2010 following his 85-day hunger strike, and the subsequent hunger strike by dissident Guillermo Fariñas, pressured the Cuban government to release the remaining political prisoners from the “group of 75,” who were detained during a 2003 crackdown on dissent. Yet while the final 12 prisoners from the group were released in March 2011, most were forced to choose between ongoing prison and forced exile.

Since that time dozens of other prominent dissidents, journalists, and human rights defenders have been forced to choose between exile and ongoing harassment or even imprisonment. For example, Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina, an outspoken human rights activist, former political prisoner, and president of a dissident youth group in Guantánamo, was arrested in December 2010. Held for months while awaiting trial, he said authorities told him that unless he agreed to go into exile, he would be sentenced to five years of prison. He accepted forced exile to Spain in April 2011.

Freedom of Expression 

The government maintains a media monopoly on the island, ensuring there is virtually no freedom of expression. The government controls all media outlets in Cuba, and access to outside information is highly restricted. Limited internet access means only a tiny fraction of Cubans can read independently published articles and blogs.

Although a few independent journalists and bloggers manage to write articles for foreign websites or independent blogs, they must publish work through back channels, such as writing from home computers, saving information on memory sticks, and uploading articles and posts through illegal internet connections; others dictate articles to contacts abroad.

Independent journalists and bloggers are subjected to short-term arrests and harassment by police and state security agents, as well as threats of imprisonment if they continue to work. For example, independent journalists Magaly Norvis Otero Suárez and Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez were detained and beaten in Havana on February 23, 2011, as they walked to an event with two members of the Women in White—a respected human rights group comprised of wives, mothers, and daughters of political prisoners—to honor the one year anniversary of Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s death. They later said they were transported to a police station, where they were assaulted and held incommunicado for roughly 14 hours.

Bloggers and independent journalists have also been the victims of public smear campaigns, such as a March 2011 episode of a government-produced news program—broadcast widely on public television—which referred to independent bloggers as “cyber-mercenaries” and “puppets of the empire.”

The Cuban government uses the granting of press credentials and visas, which foreign journalists need to report from the island, to control coverage of Cuba and punish media outlets considered overly critical of the regime. In September, for example, the government refused to renew the press credentials of a journalist from Spain’s El Pais newspaper, arguing he presented a biased and negative image of Cuba.

Human Rights Defenders 

Refusing to recognize human rights monitoring as a legitimate activity, Cuba’s government denies legal status to local human rights groups and uses harassment, beatings, and imprisonment to punish human rights defenders who try to document abuses. For example, Enyor Díaz Allen, Juan Luis Bravo Rodríguez, and Óscar Savón Pantoja—members of a human rights group in Guantanamó—were trying to enter a hospital on March 10 to visit a dissident on a hunger strike when security forces detained and transferred them without explanation to a police station and held them for three days in solitary confinement, Díaz Allen said.

Travel Restrictions and Family Separation 

The Cuban government forbids the country's citizens from leaving or returning to Cuba without first obtaining official permission, which is often denied. For example, well-known blogger Yoani Sanchez, who has criticized the government, has been denied the right to leave the island to accept awards and participate in conferences at least 16 times in the past four years. The government uses widespread fear of forced family separation to punish defectors and silence critics, and frequently bars citizens engaged in authorized travel from taking their children with them overseas, essentially holding the latter hostage to guarantee their parents' return.

The government restricts the movement of citizens within Cuba by enforcing a 1997 law known as Decree 217. Designed to limit migration to Havana, the decree requires that Cubans obtain government permission before moving to the capital. It is often used to prevent dissidents from traveling to Havana to attend meetings, and to harass dissidents from other parts of Cuba who live in the capital.

Prison Conditions 

Prisons are overcrowded, unhygienic, and unhealthy, leading to extensive malnutrition and illness. Prisoners who criticize the government, refuse to undergo ideological "reeducation," or engage in hunger strikes and other protests are often subjected to extended solitary confinement, beatings, and visit restrictions, and denied medical care. Prisoners have no effective complaint mechanism to seek redress, giving prison authorities total impunity.

Key International Actors 

The United States's economic embargo on Cuba, in place for more than half a century, continues to impose indiscriminate hardship on Cubans, and has failed to improve human rights in the country. At the United Nations General Assembly in October, 186 of the 192 member countries voted for a resolution condemning the US embargo; only the US and Israel voted against it.

In January 2011 US President Barack Obama used his executive powers to ease “people-to-people” travel restrictions, allowing religious, educational, and cultural groups from the US to travel to Cuba, and permitting Americans to send remittances to assist Cuban citizens. In 2009 Obama eliminated limits on travel and remittances by Cuban Americans to Cuba, which had been instituted during George W. Bush’s administration.

In March US citizen Alan Gross—a subcontractor for the US Agency for International Development—was sentenced to 15 years in jail for distributing telecommunications equipment for religious groups in Cuba. Gross was detained in December 2009 and accused by state prosecutors of engaging in a “subversive project aiming at bringing down the revolution.” Cuba’s highest court upheld his sentence in August. He remains in prison.

The European Union continues to retain its "Common Position" on Cuba, adopted in 1996, which conditions full economic cooperation with Cuba on its transition to a pluralist democracy and respect for human rights.

At this writing Cuba’s government had yet to ratify the core international human rights treaties—the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights—which it signed in February 2008. Cuba is currently serving a three-year term on the UN Human Rights Council, having been re-elected in May 2009.

Also available in: Español

Human Rights Watch: Dissident’s Death Highlights Repressive Tactics in Cuba

2012-01-21T17:53:00.003-05:00

Cuba: Dissident’s Death Highlights Repressive Tactics

Stop Threats against Villar Mendoza Family

January 20, 2012

(Washington, DC) – The death of the 31-year-old dissident Wilman Villar Mendoza on January 19, 2012 following a 50-day hunger strike highlights the ongoing repression in Cuba, Human Rights Watch said today. The Cuban government should immediately put an end to the threats against his wife, Maritza Pelegrino Cabrales, and the group Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White), which supports her, and drop any measures that would prevent her and dissidents from attending Villar Mendoza’s funeral.

Villar Mendoza was detained on November 2, 2011, after participating in a peaceful demonstration in Contramaestre, Cuba calling for greater political freedom and respect for human rights, his wife told Human Rights Watch. He was a member of the Union Patriotica de Cuba, a dissident group the Cuban government considers illegitimate because its members express critical views.

“Villar Mendoza’s case shows how the Cuban government punishes dissent,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “Arbitrary arrests, sham trials, inhumane imprisonment, and harassment of dissidents’ families – these are the tactics used to silence critics.”

Villar Mendoza was charged with “contempt” (desacato) and sentenced to four years in prison in a hearing that lasted less than an hour, his wife told Human Rights Watch. While she was allowed to attend the trial, dissidents who tried to enter the courtroom were denied access. Villar Mendoza was not given the opportunity to speak in his defense, nor was he represented by a defense lawyer, she said.

His wife said he initiated his hunger strike to protest his unjust trial and imprisonment.

The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, a human rights monitoring group that the government does not recognize, classified Villar Mendoza as a political prisoner in December.

Prison guards placed Villar Mendoza in solitary confinement after he initiated the hunger strike on November 25, his wife said. He told his wife he was stripped naked and placed in solitary confinement in a small, cold cell. The last time she was allowed to visit her husband was on December 29, she said.

His wife also told Human Rights Watch that government officials had repeatedly harassed her for associating with the Damas de Blanco, a human rights group consisting of wives, mothers, and daughters of political prisoners. She said state security officers explicitly threatened to take away her and Villar Mendoza’s daughters, ages 7 and 5, if she continued to work with the Damas.

According to his wife, Villar Mendoza was transferred to a hospital in Santiago de Cuba days before he died. His wife said authorities had not notified her of his death, and that she had been informed by contacts outside of Cuba, who read the story in the international press. She said she has not yet been allowed to see his body, nor has she been informed about funeral arrangements.

On February 23, 2010, another Cuban political prisoner, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, died after an 85-day hunger strike, which he initiated to protest the inhumane conditions in which he was being held and to demand medical treatment.

Also available in: Español

http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/01/20/cuba-dissident-s-death-highlights-repressive-tactics

Cuban dictatorship slanders the dead, and the media repeats it

2012-01-21T16:04:00.008-05:00

"To consider him a common criminal, smearing the memory of a martyr, is even more criminal then letting him die on hunger strike." - Dagoberto Valdés Hernández, tweeted on his account @convivenciacuba on Saturday, January 21, 2012

They have done it before.

Wilmar Villar Mendoza

On the Thursday, January 19, 2012 at approximately 6:30pm Cuban prisoner of conscience and opposition activist Wilmar Villar Mendoza died after his kidneys and other organs failed. He died the result of a prolonged hunger strike provoked by outrage over his unjust imprisonment and four year prison sentence issued in a closed-door sham trial on November 24, 2011 by agents of the Castro regime. Amnesty International recognized him as a prisoner of conscience and Human Rights Watch documented that Wilmar was a Cuban opposition activist.

Now the Cuban communist regime is engaging in a campaign to rewrite the life of Wilmar Villar Mendoza from opposition activist arrested for participating in a public protest to an individual who was arrested for physically assaulting his wife and resisting arrest. Sadly, this is not a surprise but standard operating procedure in a dictatorship that survives through systematic lying.

Totalitarian regimes have patterns of conduct. This makes their behavior predictable. Beating up, arresting and imprisoning an innocent man for engaging in the nonviolent exercise of his fundamental human rights is a common practice in the Cuban regime. Political prisoners are subjected to cruel and unusual punishment that amounts to torture. Finally, when a prisoner or dissident dies and the Cuban dictatorship is responsible then the regime engages in a campaign using both government propaganda outlets and agents of influence around the world to deny that the victim was a sincere dissident or adversary and that the Cuban regime is not responsible for his death. If necessary the dictatorship will manufacture "evidence" to makes its "case."

Over the past two years three other high profile deaths in Cuba have been subjected to this posthumous ill treatment of slander and libel:

Orlando Zapata Tamayo

On February 23, 2010 Cuban prisoner of conscience and opposition activist Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after 7 years of beatings, torture and lengthening prison terms for continuing his human rights activism while imprisoned. This victim of the dictatorship was then subjected to a campaign of slander by the Castro regime and its agents of influence. They claimed that he was a common criminal and that he had never been a Cuban dissident. Orlando Zapata Tamayo appeared photographed in the Cuban government’s own publication Los Disidentes, in photos prior to his 2003 arrest and was then recognized by Cuban officials as a dissident. The Spanish newspaper El Mundo carried a photo the day after the Cuban regime announced the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo with prominent Cuban dissidents.

Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia

Cuban opposition activist and former political prisoner Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia was badly beaten by Cuban political police on May 5, 2011 and died early on Sunday May 8, 2011. Cuban government agents then denied the circumstances surrounding his death and the regime's complicity in his death combined with the blunt intimidation of the family of the victim.

Laura Pollán

Cuban opposition leader and human rights defender Laura Pollán was a co-founder of the Ladies in White and a courageous woman who spoke truth to power and protested in the streets of Cuba demanding an amnesty for Cuban political prisoners. The Castro regime claimed that she was a stateless "traitor." She became ill and died within the space of a week under circumstances that raise the question of foul play by the Castro regime. Following her death the regime's official media began a campaign asserting that she was a common criminal. A woman who had been a school teacher, before her husband's imprisonment in 2003 (for his position as an independent journalist), was a figure of admiration both inside and outside of Cuba.

It is a sad state of affairs that much of the international media in Cuba have not caught on to these practices and regurgitate the Castro regime's position without underlining the skepticism it merits. Instead some hedge their language rather than get at the facts of the matter.

In addition to continue the effort to hold the dictatorship in Cuba responsible for its crimes that activists will also have to coordinate better in serving as media watchdogs to ensure that totalitarian propaganda not be passed of as news. Thanks to Twitter and Facebook it is far easier to expose both the crimes of the regime and the failures of the international news media to a large audience in real time. There is much work to do and lives depend on it.

Amnesty International: Cuban authorities ‘responsible' for activist's death on hunger strike

2012-01-20T13:30:00.003-05:00

"The responsibility for Wilman Villar Mendoza’s death in custody lies squarely with the Cuban authorities, who summarily judged and jailed him for exercising his right to freedom of expression."

- Javier Zúñiga, Special Adviser at Amnesty International, Fri, 20/01/2012

Another Cuban prisoner of conscience, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, died while on hunger strike in custody in February 2010. © Getty Images

20 January 2012

Cuban authorities ‘responsible' for activist's death on hunger strike

The death in custody of a Cuban prisoner of conscience after a hunger strike is a shocking reminder of the Raúl Castro government's intolerance for dissent, Amnesty International said today.

Wilman Villar Mendoza, 31, died this morning in Juan Bruno Zayas Hospital in the city of Santiago where he was transferred from prison on 13 January due to health problems allegedly arising from a hunger strike protesting at his unfair trial and imprisonment.

He was serving a four-year prison term on charges related to his participation in a public demonstration against the government.

“The responsibility for Wilman Villar Mendoza’s death in custody lies squarely with the Cuban authorities, who summarily judged and jailed him for exercising his right to freedom of expression,” said Javier Zúñiga, Special Adviser at Amnesty International.

“His tragic death highlights the depths of despair faced by the other prisoners of conscience still languishing in Cuban jails, who must be released immediately and unconditionally.”

“The Cuban authorities must stop the harassment, persecution, and imprisonment of peaceful demonstrators as well as political and human rights activists.”

On 14 November 2011, police arrested Mendoza and eight other members of the Cuban Patriotic Union dissident group in the eastern town of Contramaestre for taking part in a protest against the Cuban government.

While he was in detention, police intimidated Mendoza, telling him he would be disappeared or face imprisonment on criminal charges stemming from an earlier arrest if he did not stop his protests and leave the dissident group.

He was released after three days in police custody but was then summoned to Contramaestre Municipal Tribunal on 24 November. Judges tried him in private and refused to accept testimony from his wife or other defence witnesses.

The judges sentenced the activist to four years' imprisonment and immediately transferred him to Aguaderas prison, in the provincial capital Santiago. The same day, he began a hunger strike in protest at the ruling.

As Mendoza’s health deteriorated over recent days, members of the Cuban Patriotic Union and the Ladies in White opposition group organised a vigil outside the hospital. On 18 January, state security officials broke up the gathering and detained more than a dozen people.

Mendoza is not the first prisoner of conscience to die in Cuban custody.

Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a prisoner of conscience jailed after the “Black Spring” crackdown on opposition groups in March 2003, died in prison on 23 February 2010 after several weeks on hunger strike.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/news/cuban-authorities-responsible-activists-death-hunger-strike-2012-01-20

Castro regime's injustice claims another victim: Wilmar Villar Mendoza

2012-01-19T23:46:00.006-05:00

"Wilmar has died because he was born in a country without legal, electoral or civic paths to express his nonconformity." - Yoani Sanchez

Wilmar Villar Mendoza

Tonight two little girls lost their father; a young wife her husband; and a mother her son. Wilmar Villar Mendoza died tonight after his kidneys and other organs failed. He died the result of a prolonged hunger strike provoked by outrage over a profound injustice committed against him by the Castro regime.

The protest that led to Wilman Villar Mendoza's unjust imprisonment (Video from UNPACU)

Wilman Villar Mendoza was arrested on November14, 2011 during a violent crackdown by the political police on nonviolent Cuban democrats. Wilman and the others had engaged in a public protest in the town of Contramaestre in Santiago, Cuba on November 2, 2011. Ten days later in a closed-door, one day sham trial on November 24 Wilman was sentenced to four years in prison for disobedience, resisting arrest and contempt and was sent to Aguadores prison.

Outraged at the injustice committed against him Wilman launched a hunger strike on November 25, 2011 and refused to wear the uniform of a common prisoner. There was little press coverage or official protests regarding his plight until his death appeared imminent.

Ladies in White and other opposition activists marched and demonstrated on his behalf suffering brutal beatings and detentions but the international press remained silent. Now that he has died, as was done in the case of Orlando Zapata Tamayo in 2010, the international media is reporting it. Too little and too late for Wilmar Villar Mendoza. Bloggers and activists on twitter had alerted the world early on about his plight. Pedazos de la Isla, Uncommon Sense, Babalu, and Capitol Hill Cubans deserve special mention for getting the word out on their respective blogs.

When confronting a brutal totalitarian dictatorship there is a very simple equation:

silence = violence = death.

International official protests and heightened press scrutiny on behalf of brutalized dissidents means less bloodshed. Silence means that Maritza Pelegrino Cabrera, Wilman's wife, is now a widow and his two young daughters ages 5 and 6 will not get to grow up having a father.

Obama State Department designated Castro regime a terror sponsor for sound reasons

2012-01-17T22:46:00.008-05:00

"There's no good reason for Cuba to be listed by the US as a state sponsor of terrorism." - Jeffrey Goldberg , on Twitter, January 17, 2012

"Iran and Cuba, in cooperation with each other, can bring America to its knees." ... "The U.S. regime is very weak, and we are witnessing this weakness from close up."
- Fidel Castro, University of Tehran, May 10, 2001 quoted in the Agence France Presse

"Our positions, versions, interpretations are alike, very close. We have been good friends, we are and will be, and we will be together forever. Long live Cuba! - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Havana, Cuba, January 12, 2012

Raul Castro and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

State Department designated Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism in 2011

The Obama State Department has designated the Castro regime a state sponsor of terrorism. The actions of the Cuban government under the Castro brothers both in the past and present provides a pile of evidence that the designation is accurate. Nevertheless Cuba "experts" such as Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic claim otherwise writing in Bloomberg on Monday: Don't lump Cuba with Iran on terror list.

Less than a week after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Cuba and just a week and a day after a Venezuelan counsel was expelled from the United States for sitting in on meetings with Cuban and Iranian officials to plot cyber attacks on the America. The evidence says otherwise.

Cuba and Iran think alike

When the leader of Iran states that Cuba and Iran think alike, he speaks the truth. Both regimes have used terrorism both domestically and internationally to advance political objectives. For example, Fidel Castro ordered a premeditated attack on July 13, 1994 that led to the deaths of 37 men, women, and children. Five days later on July 18, 1994 a bomb exploded and destroyed 7-story Jewish-Argentine Mutual Association (AMIA) community centre in Buenos Aires killing 85 men, women and children. This terrorist attack was linked to Iran but the individuals responsible have yet to be prosecuted.

Fidel Castro and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

The Past: Prior to being on the list of terror sponsors

The Castro brothers hosted and organized beginning in 1966 Tricontinental Conferences where "Cuba and Latin American Marxist Leninist terrorist groups began their collaboration with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and other radical Arab groups in the training and arming of terrorists."

One of the outcomes of the Conference was that the Cuban government published the "Mini Manual for Revolutionaries" in the official Latin American Solidarity Organization (LASO) publication Tricontinental, written by Brazilian urban terrorist Carlos Marighella, which gives precise instructions in terror tactics, kidnappings, etc. and translated into numerous languages which were distributed worldwide by the Cuban dictatorship. There is a chapter on terrorism. An online copy of the book is displayed on the website of fugitive Assata Shakur who fled to Cuba in 1984 for the murder of a police officer and unlike the average Cuban is able to maintain a web site from Cuba.

Fidel Castro and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Why was the Castro regime placed on the list of state sponsors of terrorism

On March 1, 1982 the Cuban dictatorship was placed on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. less than three months after the US State Department confirmed that the Castro regime was using a narcotics ring to funnel both arms and cash to the Colombian M19 terrorist group then battling to overthrow Colombia’s democratic government.

The Present: What does Wikileaks say about Cuban links to terrorism today?

Wikileaks leaked a February 27, 2009 cable published in its entirety in the Spanish socialist publication, El País which states that the US Interests Section in Havana has evidence that Cuba continues to be a safe haven for terrorists.

Why are the "experts" so consistently wrong?

Jeffrey Goldberg and Julia Sweig with Fidel Castro*

Jeffrey Goldberg in his Monday essay cites Julia Sweig as a source to discount that the Castro dictatorship is a sponsor of terrorism and makes a reference to Norway but fails to mention that self-confessed Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik published a lengthy manifesto where over the course of 1,500 pages repeated three times a quote by Fidel Castro that inspired him.

Elsa Montera Maldonado and Jose Gomez Abad expelled for plotting terrorist attack in New York City in 1962 assisted Julia Sweig in writing her 2002 book on Cuba.*

On page XIV of the acknowledgements of her May 2002 book Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground Julia Sweig lists a number of people who assisted her in writing the book. Two names stand out: Elsa Montera Maldonado and Jose Gomez Abad who Sweig described as championing the project. This husband and wife team were working as Cuban diplomats at the Cuba Mission in New York City but were in reality State Security agents. Both were expelled for their role in a planned terrorist attack on the Friday after Thanksgiving in 1962 with the objective of detonating 500 kilos of explosives inside Macy’s, Gimbel’s, Bloomingdale’s and Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal.

No doubt Sweig and Goldberg mean well, but before they return to Cuba to continue their respective academic and journalistic pursuits they should consider reading Paul Hollander's Political Pilgrims: Western Intellectuals in Search of the Good Society. This sociology text analyzes how totalitarian regimes, such as the one in Cuba, are able to disguise the horrors taking place in their systems presenting it in a positive light to visitors.

*New York Times 1962 image and photo of Goldberg and Sweig taken from Babalu Blog

Cuban democrat Wilman Villar Mendoza on hunger strike near death

2012-01-17T08:11:00.005-05:00

Opposition activists report on Wilman Villar Mendoza's health status and call for his freedom

On Sunday, January 15, 2012 (on Martin Luther King Jr's birthday) a large group of the Ladies in White were brutally beaten up and detained as they marched from the Cobre to the hospital Juan Bruno Zayas calling for the release of Wilman Villar Mendoza and that his life be saved.* Wilman has been on a hunger strike for over 50 days protesting his unjust imprisonment. Comparisons are being drawn between his plight and that of the late prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

The Cuban democratic opposition is concerned over the plight of this Cuban dissident who's life hangs in the balance. Little known outside of opposition circles in Cuba Wilman Villar Mendoza was arrested on November14, 2011 during a violent crackdown by the political police on Cuban democrats engaged in a public protest in the town of Contramaestre in Santiago, Cuba. Ten days later in a closed-door, one day sham trial on November 24 Wilman was sentenced to four years in prison for disobedience, resisting arrest and contempt and was sent to Aguadores prison.

Outraged at the injustice committed against him Villar launched a hunger strike the next day and refused to wear the uniform of a common prisoner.

Regime agents blackmailed his wife Maritza Pelegrino threatening to take away her two young daughters for refusing to break with the Ladies in White. The Ladies in White are a civic group of women that advocate, lobby and protest for the release of Cuban political prisoners.

According to his wife, Wilman Villar Mendoza was transferred to the Zayas Hospital in Santiago only when his health took a turn for the worse on January 14.

Reports have appeared in The Miami Herald, Diario de Cuba, Reporteros 24 and blogs such as Uncommon Sense, Capitol Hill Cubans, Pedazos de la Isla, and Babalu Blog describing Wilman presently in a coma and suffering pneumonia.

*According to Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia the following women were attacked by Cuban State Security on January 15, 2012 asking that Wilman Villar Mendoza be freed and not left to die:

Tania Montoya Vázquez, Yanelis Elégica Despaine, Yamiseli Aleaga Kayamo, Karina Quintana Hernández, Madelaine Santo Grillo, Mayelin La O Montero, Darmis Aguedo Zaldivar, Yarisel Figueredo Valdés, Yanella Montero, Vázquez, Aleanna Isaac, Arelys Rodígues Chacón, Aurora Martín Calderín, Miraida Martín Calderín, Yudislaidis Travieso Garlobo, Yusmari Chacón Lamot, Elisa Milagros Reinier Acosta y María Alfonso Córdoba.

In addition to the Ladies in White the following opposition activists were also detained and beaten for calling on Wilman Villar Mendoza be freed and not left to die:

Raumel Vinajera Stevens, Rulisam Ramírez Rodríguez, Bismarck Peña Pérez, Yuselin Ferrer Espinosa, Antonio González Bordonado, Ovidio Martín Castellano, Carlos Martín Calderín, Manuel Santiago Zaldivar González, Andri Verdecia Osorio, Abraham Cabrera Torres, Aurora Martin Calderín, Arelys Rodríguez Chacón, Luis Enrique Losada, Enrique Losada Aguedo, Miraida Martín Calderín.

Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. on his 83rd birthday

2012-01-15T11:18:00.006-05:00

Martin Luther King Jr. in 1966

Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia 83 years ago today on January 15, 1929. He would grow up to be a Baptist minister and civil rights leader and die by an assassins bullet at the age of 39 on April 4, 1968. Both the FBI and KGB carried out active measures against this man in an effort to destroy him and his reputation.

Martin Luther King Jr. on the Mike Douglas show in 1967

Tomorrow the United States will observe Martin Luther King Day, a federal holiday since 1986 and in 2011 a monument to Martin Luther King Jr. was unveiled on the national mall.

Martin Luther King Jr. was brought into the civil rights struggle by the bus boycott that arose out of an act of nonviolent resistance by Rosa Parks on a segregated bus on December 1, 1955. His ability to organize a national social movement begins with the initial steps to organize the Montgomery bus boycott.

Malcolm X on Martin Luther King Jr.

He was criticized by Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael for his nonviolent stand and accused Martin Luther King Jr. of being passive but in fact believed in the importance of having an aggressive attitude.

Martin Luther King Jr. responds to Malcolm X

The critiques against Martin Luther King Jr. and nonviolence are of importance today because around the world in Egypt, Tunisia, Burma, Cuba and elsewhere movements have emerged that are inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.'s example of nonviolent struggle. In the United States elements within the Occupy Wall Street movement have embraced Martin Luther King Jr. and are organizing acts of remembrance on his birthday.

At the same time critical voices have arisen that advocate violence. The historical record surrounding Martin Luther King Jr. and the black power movement demonstrates the success of nonviolent resistance and the failure of violent resistance in achieving the goals of black empowerment.

Diane Nash, a great pioneer of nonviolence from the sit-ins to the Selma march, rejected nonviolence and took up with the siren call of Black Power. Nash described her reasoning:

"If we've done all this through nonviolence, think what we could do if we were just willing to be urban guerrillas and knock over a few banks. [...] "Of course, ten years later I looked up and I hadn't knocked over any banks and I hadn't been a guerilla. I hadn't even been to the rifle range. But I had withdrawn from this painful, creative engagement with nonviolence and democracy behind a big smokescreen of noise."

In addition to deactivating serious activists the lure of violence and urban guerrilla warfare would exact a terrible cost. According to Virginia Postrel, from 1964 to 1971, there were more than 750 riots, killing 228 people and injuring 12,741 others. After more than 15,000 separate incidents of arson, many black urban neighborhoods were in ruins. The end results were ruined neighborhoods; an explosion in crime; and increased poverty.

Human Rights Watch: Political Prisoners Released in Burma

2012-01-15T10:07:00.004-05:00

Allow International Monitors to Account for All Remaining Detainees

Pyone Cho, an activist of the 88 Generation Students Group, center, was released from prison on Friday, Jan. 13, 2012. Photo by Associated Press

(New York) – The release of key political prisoners on January 13, 2012 is a crucial development in promoting respect for human rights in Burma, but all remaining political prisoners should be freed immediately and unconditionally, Human Rights Watch said today.

Among those released are members of the 88 Generation student group that led the 1988 uprising, including leader Min Ko Naing, Nilar Thein, her husband Kyaw Min Yu, known as Ko Jimmy, as well as Htay Kywe. Shan ethnic leader Khun Tun Oo, monk leader U Gambira, journalists Zaw Thet Htwe, Ngwe Soe Linn, Hla Hla Win, and blogger Nay Phone Latt were also released today.

Burma state media said on January 12 that 651 prisoners would be freed so they can participate in the task of nation-building.

“Years of international calls to release long-detained political prisoners seem to have pushed the government to finally do the right thing,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should ensure that there are no obstacles to these activists participating in public life and upcoming elections.”

The US State Department had estimated that at least 1,100 political prisoners were detained in Burma and the Thai-based Assistance Association of Political Prisoners in Burma counted more than 1,500. Given the closed nature of Burma's justice system, the lack of a free press and unsophisticated communications in one of Asia's poorest countries – particularly in remote ethnic areas affected by conflict – each of these lists may omit significant numbers of people being held for the peaceful expression of their political views.

Human Rights Watch called on the Burmese government to allow international independent monitors to publicly account for all remaining political prisoners.

“The latest releases are wonderful news for the individuals and their families, but foreign governments should continue to push for the release of all political prisoners, and for international monitors to verify the process,” said Pearson. “For years Burma's prisons have been off-limits to any independent monitoring mechanism. The next step for Burma’s government is to allow international monitors to verify the whereabouts and conditions of remaining political prisoners.”

http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/01/13/burma-political-prisoners-released

Cuban State Security punishes mom by imprisoning her innocent son

2012-01-13T13:50:00.006-05:00

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. - Martin Luther King Jr.

Poster translated: Liberty for Josvany Melchor Rodríguez, A youth with mental limitations. Sentenced to 12 years in prison because his mother, a member of MCL, refused to collaborate with the political police. Information: http://www.oswaldopaya.org/es

State Security agents visited Rosa María Rodríguez Gil, a member of the Christian Liberation Movement, and demanded that she spy on the organization for the Castro regime. She was warned by the agents that if she did not comply and spy for them, her son would suffer.

Relatives of Cuban dissidents have suffered harassment, punishment and prison just for being a member of their family. Josvany Melchor Rodríguez who turns 30 in 2012 was detained by State Security on March 19, 2010 housed with convicted criminals and sentenced to 12 years in prison in a sham trial. Although he is mentally challenged, Josvany was accused of helping a baseball player and the player's wife to defect. Another individual had already pleaded guilty to the "offense" and been sentenced to 12 years in prison on November 30, 2010. The reality is that Josvany is serving a 12 year prison sentence for two reasons: his mother refused to spy on human rights activists and he refused to denounce his mother and end his relationship with her.

Unfortunately this is not an arbitrary act of injustice but a deeply ingrained part of the communist system that operates in Cuba and elsewhere.

Rosa María Rodríguez Gil distraught over her son's unjust imprisonment

Since the founding of the Soviet Union and the launching of the Red Terror in 1918 communist regimes have punished the relatives of dissidents and conscientious objectors with great brutality in including shooting one family member from each family.

In 2011, Amnesty International reported how the families of human rights lawyers in China are harassed and mistreated. These are not isolated cases but a tactic within a larger overall strategy to destroy not only the individual who dissents but his family as well.

Brutality against family members was taken to great extreme in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge where a theory of contamination meant that not only was the dissident imprisoned and executed but also his entire family. This was because according to Pol Pot "contaminated people" had to be destroyed. People contaminated by Western influence needed to be exterminated.

The only way to save Josvany Melchor Rodríguez is to let others know of his plight. Please spread the word.

For more information visit the website of Oswaldo Paya, of the Christian Liberation Movement

Mubarak's End: The military coup and the popular uprising

2012-01-13T09:25:00.010-05:00

Tahrir Square: One year later

Hosni Mubarak's end did not end the system

Unfortunately, the rising level of violence between the military and the opposition demanding civilian rule was predictable. There was a temporary coalition with one short term goal put an end to Mubarak and his succession plan.

The end of the Mubarak era was the result of a confluence of factors and interests that created a perfect storm against the Mubarak regime. The disenchantment of the army with Mubarak’s son, Gamal Mubarak, as a successor was a main and key factor. Egyptian liberals were put off by the dynastic succession from father to son and the military refused to recognize the son of their military leader who had never served in the military.

During the January 25th Revolution it was said that the army and the people were one hand because the army had refused to fire on the people in Tahrir Square and forced Mubarak's surrender. Furthermore, that it was a combination of the mass protests and disgruntled elements in the military that pressured Mubarak to step down and his son to flee the country. Gamal had made enemies in the senior ranks of the military as he sought to have some of them purged and replaced with his own supporters.

Hosni Mubarak, at age 82, was engaged in a risky venture – a succession/transition from military dynastic rule to Mubarak dynastic rule based on blood descendents. Gamal Mubarak had never served a day in the military. Not even the basic military service required of all Egyptians. This had more in common with the preexisting political order that had been overthrown by the military.

Muhammad Ali Pasha was the first ruler since 1517 to divest the Ottoman Empire of control over Egypt and laid the groundwork for an independent Egypt. He modernized the country and along with his descendents reduced mortality rates, improved the quality of life in Egypt and the population exploded. This royal family would rule Egypt from June 18, 1805 until June 18, 1953.

On July 26, 1952 Egyptian military officers forced the abdication of Farouk I who had ruled over the country since 1936 replacing him with his infant son Fuad II. On June 18, 1953 the constitutional monarchy that had ruled over Egypt since 1805 was abolished and replaced with a republic in name and military rule in practice. It was the end of the Muhammad Ali dynasty.

Over the next 60 years Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak (all from the military) would rule Egypt: Gamar Abdel Nasser from 1956 to 1970, Anwar Sadat from 1970 until his assassination on October 6, 1981 and finally Mubarak from 1981 until he relinquished power on February 11, 2011.

A dynastic succession from a father in the military to a son who had never served a day in uniform had more in common with the previous monarchic system than with the past 60 years of Egyptian military rule. It was unpopular both with democrats and the military but for different reasons.

The demonstrators in Tahrir Square, primarily young Egyptians many of them urban, secular, liberals, social democrats, and leftists along with younger members of the Muslim brotherhood and even some Salafists objected to 30 years of Mubarak rule and its continuation under yet another Mubarak on democratic grounds. The military elite did not want to be purged to make way for Gamal Mubarak's inner circle and was also offended at having to submit to civilian oversight.

Both the demonstrators and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) were on the same page that a Mubarak succession was unacceptable but for profoundly different reasons. In the span of 18 days a 30 years long Mubarak regime was swept away. However, the stark reality is that the military dictatorship that has ruled Egypt since 1952 remains intact and in power.

The continuing conflict between the military and the civilian demonstrators, which includes the Islamists is over the end of military rule in favor of civilian rule that has oversight over the military. The military wants civilian rule to take responsibility for the economy and social services while maintaining its own perks and privileges.

However, that does not detract from the fact of the matter was that in the matter of stopping the Mubarak succession plan the people and the army were on the same page but for entirely different reasons. It is also why the downfall of the Mubarak regime had the characteristics of both a popular uprising and a military coup.

Unfortunately, with the end of the Mubarak dynasty most of the millions of Egyptians that had taken to the streets returned home leaving behind a smaller but determined group of revolutionaries that would occupy Tahrir Squares and other key squares throughout Egypt. The parliamentary elections, although not guaranteeing civilian rule with oversight of the military, further satisfied the public desire for normality and further isolated the liberals and secularists while empowering the Islamic parties.

It is an outcome that benefits the military that will now be viewed as the last line between a secular Egypt and an Islamic theocracy to the international community. This would also explain the calculated raids on human rights organizations and increased violence and repression against activists in Tahrir Square.

Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies on the raids against NGOs in Egypt

The military controls the institutions of government and has superior fire power but the violence committed against activists in Tahrir and raids against non-governmental organizations throughout Egypt endangers its legitimacy with Egyptians. As Gandhi once observed: "The spirit of democracy cannot be imposed from without. It has to come from within." The power of the powerless can wash away the military with nonviolence and civil disobedience as effectively as long ago the Red Sea swept away Pharaoh's army.

There is much work yet to do to achieve a free and democratic Egypt but the good news is that it is an obtainable goal. Courageous Egyptians have demonstrated over the past half century and with great passion over the past year the necessary toughness and discipline in resisting military rule.

My prayers and solidarity with the people of Egypt in achieving freedom and the rule of law in their country.

Guantanamo, Iran and human rights in Cuba

2012-01-12T06:10:00.013-05:00

The Castro regime is consistent on human rights. They're against them.

Raul Castro and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, January 11, 2012 Photo by Associated Press

The visit of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Cuba on the tenth anniversary of the opening of the Guantanamo Naval Base to detainees from the war in Afghanistan serves as a double reminder on the Castro regime's support for systematic human rights violations.

Awarding of Honorary degree to Ahmadinejad broadcast on official TV. Photo by Yoani Sanchez

Yesterday, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who represents a regime that murders its own citizens, denies the Nazi holocaust of the Jewish people and the existence of homosexuals in Iran was presented an Honorary degree from the University of Havana and was invited to make a speech there where he denounced capitalism.

No one should be surprised because it is just the latest chapter in a long history of embracing tyrants. What should be surprising is that the same regime in 2002 welcomed the opening of the US prison camp in Guantanamo.

Guantanamo prison camp

On January 12, 2002 the Cuban Communist Party's daily newspaper Granma offered the official position of the dictatorship on the prison camp in Guantanamo: "We will not create any obstacles to the development of the [U.S. military] operation, though the transfer of foreign prisoners of war by the U.S. government to the base—located on a space in our territory upon which we have been deprived of any jurisdiction—was not part of the agreement that the base was founded upon."

The first Cuban to criticize and denounce the United States for housing Afghan prisoners in Cuba and demanding they be treated with dignity was Cuban opposition leader Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas on December 17, 2002:

It's obviously a matter of shame that our land is being used for that purpose, having foreign prisoners brought to Cuba. Even if they are terrorists they deserve respect. Their human rights should be respected.

The Castro dictatorship has been a steadfast apologist for systematic human rights violations not only with friendly regimes such as China, Venezuela, Syria, Libya, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka and Iran but also with adversaries such as the military junta in Argentina and in the beginning with even the United States over Guantanamo.

It can truly be said that the Castro regime in Cuba has two consistent universal enemies: human rights and the rule of law and one consistent ally: tyranny. Some would ask but what about social and economic rights? What about the healthcare system in Cuba. It is a two tiered system that offers little to the average Cuban and everything to a privileged few and tourists who can pay.

The dictatorship fears Cubans that defend human rights and the rule of law. Cuban women like Laura Inés Pollán Toledo, who died after a brief and mysterious illness on October 14, 2011 who nonviolently stood up for human rights and the rule of law and was a unifying figure in the Cuban opposition.

Raul Castro and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, January 11, 2012 (Reuters video)

Ten years later Oswaldo Paya is criticizing the honoring of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and denouncing both his antisemitism and brutal human rights record:

Tyrant lizard on the hill. Currently Ahmadinejad speaks at the University of Havana. It is an insult to the students and an outrage to the sacred remains of Father Varela and against the virtue and the homeland of the Cubans

Mahmoud, why do you deny the Holocaust? Would you repeat it? Never again against any people.

In solidarity with and in the memory of Neda and the other young Iranians murdered in Iran by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his regime.

35 years later: Václav Havel and Charter 77

2012-01-06T23:01:00.007-05:00

A worldwide celebration of Charter 77, the landmark human rights declaration co-authored by Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia on January 6, 1977 was carried out with events held on the same day in Prague, Seoul, Brussels, New York City, Washington DC, and Miami.

It was 35 years ago today that Jan Patocka, Jiri Hajek and Vaclav Havel were designated spokesmen by the signatories of Charter 77, a document that denounced the lack of human rights in Czechoslovakia and courageously called for reform and change. Within three months one of the three spokesman, philosopher Jan Patocka would die under interrogation. Hajek would live to see the end of communism but died shortly afterwards in 1993 without achieving political influence in post-communist Czechoslovakia. The last of the three spokesmen, Václav Havel, passed away on December 18, 2011. Both as a dissident and later as a president Havel would leave a deep impact both inside the Czech republic and internationally. Reproduced below is the historic document.

Manifesto of Charter 77, Vaclav Havel (1977)

Manifesto of Charter 77

In the Czechoslovak Register of Laws No. 120 of October 13, 1976, texts were published of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which were signed on behalf of our republic in 1968, reiterated at Helsinki in 1975 and came into force in our country on March 23, 1976. From that date our citizens have enjoyed the rights, and our state the duties, ensuing from them.

The human rights and freedoms underwritten by these covenants constitute features of civilized life for which many progressive movements have striven throughout history and whose codification could greatly assist humane developments in our society.

We accordingly welcome the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic's accession to those agreements.

Their publication, however, serves as a powerful reminder of the extent to which basic human rights in our country exist, regrettably, on paper alone.

The right to freedom of expression, for example, guaranteed by Article 19 of the first-mentioned covenant, is in our case purely illusory. Tens of thousands of our citizens are prevented from working in their own fields for the sole reason that they hold views differing from official ones, and are discriminated against and harassed in all kinds of ways by the authorities and public organizations. Deprived as they are of any means to defend themselves, they become victims of a virtual apartheid.

Hundreds of thousands of other citizens are denied that "freedom from fear" mentioned in the preamble to the first covenant, being condemned to the constant risk of unemployment or other penalties if they voice their own opinions.

In violation of Article 13 of the second-mentioned covenant, guaranteeing everyone the right to education, countless young people are prevented from studying because of their own views or even their parents'. Innumerable citizens live in fear of their own or their children's right to education being withdrawn if they should ever speak up in accordance with their convictions.

Any exercise of the right to "seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print" or "in the form of art" specified in Article 19, Clause 2 of the first covenant is followed by extra-judicial and even judicial sanctions, often in the form of criminal charges, as in the recent trial of young musicians.

Freedom of public expression is inhibited by the centralized control of all the communication media and of publishing and cultural institutions. No philosophical, political or scientific view or artistic activity that departs ever so slightly from the narrow bounds of official ideology or aesthetics is allowed to be published; no open criticism can be made of abnormal social phenomena; no public defense is possible against false and insulting charges made in official propaganda -- the legal protection against "attacks on honor and reputation" clearly guaranteed by Article 17 of the first covenant is in practice non-existent: false accusations cannot be rebutted, and any attempt to secure compensation or correction through the courts is futile; no open debate is allowed in the domain of thought and art.

Many scholars, writers, artists and others are penalized for having legally published or expressed, years ago, opinions which are condemned by those who hold political power today.

Freedom of religious confession, emphatically guaranteed by Article 18 of the first covenant, is continually curtailed by arbitrary official action; by interference with the activity of churchmen, who are constantly threatened by the refusal of the state to permit them the exercise of their functions, or by the withdrawal of such permission; by financial or other transactions against those who express their religious faith in word or action; by constraints on religious training and so forth.

One instrument for the curtailment or in many cases complete elimination of many civic rights is the system by which all national institutions and organizations are in effect subject to political directives from the machinery of the ruling party and to decisions made by powerful individuals.

The constitution of the republic, its laws and legal norms do not regulate the form or content, the issuing or application of such decisions; they are often only given out verbally, unknown to the public at large and beyond its powers to check; their originators are responsible to no one but themselves and their own hierarchy; yet they have a decisive impact on the decision-making and executive organs of government, justice, trade unions, interest groups and all other organizations, of the other political parties, enterprises, factories, institutions, offices and so on, for whom these instructions have precedence even before the law.

Where organizations or individuals, in the interpretation of their rights and duties, come into conflict with such directives, they cannot have recourse to any non-party authority, since none such exists. This constitutes, of course, a serious limitation of the right ensuing from Articles 21 and 22 of the first-mentioned covenant, which provides for freedom of association and forbids any restriction on its exercise, from Article 25 on the right to take part in the conduct of public affairs, and from Article 26 stipulating equal protection by the law without discrimination.

This state of affairs likewise prevents workers and others from exercising the unrestricted right to establish trade unions and other organizations to protect their economic and social interests, and from freely enjoying the right to strike provided for in Clause 1 of Article 8 in the second-mentioned covenant.

Further civic rights, including the explicit prohibition of "arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home or correspondence" (Article 17 of the first covenant), are seriously vitiated by the various forms of interference in the private life of citizens exercised by the Ministry of the Interior, for example by bugging telephones and houses, opening mail, following personal movements, searching homes, setting up networks of neighborhood informers (often recruited by illicit threats or promises) and in other ways.

The ministry frequently interferes in employers' decisions, instigates acts of discrimination by authorities and organizations, brings weight to bear on the organs of justice and even orchestrates propaganda campaigns in the media. This activity is governed by no law and, being clandestine, affords the citizen no chance to defend himself.

In cases of prosecution on political grounds the investigative and judicial organs violate the rights of those charged and those defending them, as guaranteed by Article 14 of the first covenant and indeed by Czechoslovak law. The prison treatment of those sentenced in such cases is an affront to their human dignity and a menace to their health, being aimed at breaking their morale.

Clause 2, Article 12 of the first covenant, guaranteeing every citizen the right to leave the country, is consistently violated, or under the pretense of "defense of national security" is subjected to various unjustifiable conditions (Clause 3). The granting of entry visas to foreigners is also treated arbitrarily, and many are unable to visit Czechoslovakia merely because of professional or personal contacts with those of our citizens who are subject to discrimination.

Some of our people -- either in private, at their places of work or by the only feasible public channel, the foreign media -- have drawn attention to the systematic violation of human rights and democratic freedoms and demanded amends in specific cases. But their pleas have remained largely ignored or been made grounds for police investigation.

Responsibility for the maintenance of rights in our country naturally devolves in the first place on the political and state authorities. Yet not only on them: everyone bears his share of responsibility for the conditions that prevail and accordingly also for the observance of legally enshrined agreements, binding upon all individuals as well as upon governments.

It is this sense of co-responsibility, our belief in the importance of its conscious public acceptance and the general need to give it new and more effective expression that led us to the idea of creating Charter 77, whose inception we today publicly announce.

Charter 77 is a loose, informal and open association of people of various shades of opinion, faiths and professions united by the will to strive individually and collectively for the respecting of civic and human rights in our own country and throughout the world -- rights accorded to all men by the two mentioned international covenants, by the Final Act of the Helsinki conference and by numerous other international documents opposing war, violence and social or spiritual oppression, and which are comprehensively laid down in the U.N. Universal Charter of Human Rights.

Charter 77 springs from a background of friendship and solidarity among people who share our concern for those ideals that have inspired, and continue to inspire, their lives and their work.

Charter 77 is not an organization; it has no rules, permanent bodies or formal membership. It embraces everyone who agrees with its ideas and participates in its work. It does not form the basis for any oppositional political activity. Like many similar citizen initiatives in various countries, West and East, it seeks to promote the general public interest.

It does not aim, then, to set out its own platform of political or social reform or change, but within its own field of impact to conduct a constructive dialogue with the political and state authorities, particularly by drawing attention to individual cases where human and civic frights are violated, to document such grievances and suggest remedies, to make proposals of a more general character calculated to reinforce such rights and machinery for protecting them, to act as an intermediary in situations of conflict which may lead to violations of rights, and so forth.

By its symbolic name Charter 77 denotes that it has come into being at the start of a year proclaimed as Political Prisoners' Year -- a year in which a conference in Belgrade is due to review the implementation of the obligations assumed at Helsinki.

As signatories, we hereby authorize Professor Dr. Jan Patocka, Dr. Vaclav Havel and Professor Dr. Jiri Hajek to act as the spokesmen for the Charter. These spokesmen are endowed with full authority to represent it vis-a-vis state and other bodies, and the public at home and abroad, and their signatures attest to the authenticity of documents issued by the Charter. They will have us and others who join us as their colleagues taking part in any needful negotiations, shouldering particular tasks and sharing every responsibility.

We believe that Charter 77 will help to enable all citizens of Czechoslovakia to work and live as free human beings.

Prague, 1 January 1977

Václav Havel's 1990 New Year's Message

2012-01-01T14:21:00.005-05:00

[W]e are all - though naturally to differing extents - responsible for the operation of the totalitarian machinery. None of us is just its victim. We are all also its co-creators. - Václav Havel , 1990 New Year's Speech

Václav Havel shortly after taking the presidential oath on December 29, 1989

Václav Havel passed away on December 18, 2011. It is not only the Czech people who are shocked and saddened by his passing. Worldwide dissidents, democrats and human rights defenders are mourning his passing. On January 6, 2012 in Washington, DC there will be a memorial tribute for Havel on the 35th anniversary of Charter 77 and in Miami, Florida there will be a special Mass for the former dissident and Czech president.

Twenty two years ago today Havel addressed the people of what was then still Czechoslovakia about the challenges they faced. This New Year's message is worth reading again today for those struggling for freedom in their respective countries and even more so for those engaged in a democratic transition. Below is the English translation taken from the official website of the Czech President.

Prague, January 1, 1990

My dear fellow citizens,

For forty years you heard from my predecessors on this day different variations on the same theme: how our country was flourishing, how many million tons of steel we produced, how happy we all were, how we trusted our government, and what bright perspectives were unfolding in front of us.

I assume you did not propose me for this office so that I, too, would lie to you.

Our country is not flourishing. The enormous creative and spiritual potential of our nations is not being used sensibly. Entire branches of industry are producing goods that are of no interest to anyone, while we are lacking the things we need. A state which calls itself a workers' state humiliates and exploits workers. Our obsolete economy is wasting the little energy we have available. A country that once could be proud of the educational level of its citizens spends so little on education that it ranks today as seventy-second in the world. We have polluted the soil, rivers and forests bequeathed to us by our ancestors, and we have today the most contaminated environment in Europe. Adults in our country die earlier than in most other European countries.

Allow me a small personal observation. When I flew recently to Bratislava, I found some time during discussions to look out of the plane window. I saw the industrial complex of Slovnaft chemical factory and the giant Petr'alka housing estate right behind it. The view was enough for me to understand that for decades our statesmen and political leaders did not look or did not want to look out of the windows of their planes. No study of statistics available to me would enable me to understand faster and better the situation in which we find ourselves.

But all this is still not the main problem. The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension, and for many of us they represented only psychological peculiarities, or they resembled gone-astray greetings from ancient times, a little ridiculous in the era of computers and spaceships. Only a few of us were able to cry out loudly that the powers that be should not be all-powerful and that the special farms, which produced ecologically pure and top-quality food just for them, should send their produce to schools, children's homes and hospitals if our agriculture was unable to offer them to all.

The previous regime - armed with its arrogant and intolerant ideology - reduced man to a force of production, and nature to a tool of production. In this it attacked both their very substance and their mutual relationship. It reduced gifted and autonomous people, skillfully working in their own country, to the nuts and bolts of some monstrously huge, noisy and stinking machine, whose real meaning was not clear to anyone. It could not do more than slowly but inexorably wear out itself and all its nuts and bolts.

When I talk about the contaminated moral atmosphere, I am not talking just about the gentlemen who eat organic vegetables and do not look out of the plane windows. I am talking about all of us. We had all become used to the totalitarian system and accepted it as an unchangeable fact and thus helped to perpetuate it. In other words, we are all - though naturally to differing extents - responsible for the operation of the totalitarian machinery. None of us is just its victim. We are all also its co-creators.

Why do I say this? It would be very unreasonable to understand the sad legacy of the last forty years as something alien, which some distant relative bequeathed to us. On the contrary, we have to accept this legacy as a sin we committed against ourselves. If we accept it as such, we will understand that it is up to us all, and up to us alone to do something about it. We cannot blame the previous rulers for everything, not only because it would be untrue, but also because it would blunt the duty that each of us faces today: namely, the obligation to act independently, freely, reasonably and quickly. Let us not be mistaken: the best government in the world, the best parliament and the best president, cannot achieve much on their own. And it would be wrong to expect a general remedy from them alone. Freedom and democracy include participation and therefore responsibility from us all.

If we realize this, then all the horrors that the new Czechoslovak democracy inherited will cease to appear so terrible. If we realize this, hope will return to our hearts.

Václav Havel interviewed by David Frost in 2008

In the effort to rectify matters of common concern, we have something to lean on. The recent period - and in particular the last six weeks of our peaceful revolution - has shown the enormous human, moral and spiritual potential, and the civic culture that slumbered in our society under the enforced mask of apathy. Whenever someone categorically claimed that we were this or that, I always objected that society is a very mysterious creature and that it is unwise to trust only the face it presents to you. I am happy that I was not mistaken. Everywhere in the world people wonder where those meek, humiliated, skeptical and seemingly cynical citizens of Czechoslovakia found the marvelous strength to shake the totalitarian yoke from their shoulders in several weeks, and in a decent and peaceful way. And let us ask: Where did the young people who never knew another system get their desire for truth, their love of free thought, their political ideas, their civic courage and civic prudence? How did it happen that their parents -- the very generation that had been considered lost -- joined them? How is it that so many people immediately knew what to do and none needed any advice or instruction?

I think there are two main reasons for the hopeful face of our present situation. First of all, people are never just a product of the external world; they are also able to relate themselves to something superior, however systematically the external world tries to kill that ability in them. Secondly, the humanistic and democratic traditions, about which there had been so much idle talk, did after all slumber in the unconsciousness of our nations and ethnic minorities, and were inconspicuously passed from one generation to another, so that each of us could discover them at the right time and transform them into deeds.

We had to pay, however, for our present freedom. Many citizens perished in jails in the 1950s, many were executed, thousands of human lives were destroyed, hundreds of thousands of talented people were forced to leave the country. Those who defended the honor of our nations during the Second World War, those who rebelled against totalitarian rule and those who simply managed to remain themselves and think freely, were all persecuted. We should not forget any of those who paid for our present freedom in one way or another. Independent courts should impartially consider the possible guilt of those who were responsible for the persecutions, so that the truth about our recent past might be fully revealed.

We must also bear in mind that other nations have paid even more dearly for their present freedom, and that indirectly they have also paid for ours. The rivers of blood that have flowed in Hungary, Poland, Germany and recently in such a horrific manner in Romania, as well as the sea of blood shed by the nations of the Soviet Union, must not be forgotten. First of all because all human suffering concerns every other human being. But more than this, they must also not be forgotten because it is these great sacrifices that form the tragic background of today's freedom or the gradual emancipation of the nations of the Soviet Bloc, and thus the background of our own newfound freedom. Without the changes in the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, and the German Democratic Republic, what has happened in our country would have scarcely happened. And if it did, it certainly would not have followed such a peaceful course.

The fact that we enjoyed optimal international conditions does not mean that anyone else has directly helped us during the recent weeks. In fact, after hundreds of years, both our nations have raised their heads high of their own initiative without relying on the help of stronger nations or powers. It seems to me that this constitutes the great moral asset of the present moment. This moment holds within itself the hope that in the future we will no longer suffer from the complex of those who must always express their gratitude to somebody. It now depends only on us whether this hope will be realized and whether our civic, national, and political self-confidence will be awakened in a historically new way.

Self-confidence is not pride. Just the contrary: only a person or a nation that is self-confident, in the best sense of the word, is capable of listening to others, accepting them as equals, forgiving its enemies and regretting its own guilt. Let us try to introduce this kind of self-confidence into the life of our community and, as nations, into our behavior on the international stage. Only thus can we restore our self-respect and our respect for one another as well as the respect of other nations.

Our state should never again be an appendage or a poor relative of anyone else. It is true that we must accept and learn many things from others, but we must do this in the future as their equal partners, who also have something to offer.

Our first president wrote: "Jesus, not Caesar." In this he followed our philosophers Chelick and Komensk. I dare to say that we may even have an opportunity to spread this idea further and introduce a new element into European and global politics. Our country, if that is what we want, can now permanently radiate love, understanding, the power of the spirit and of ideas. It is precisely this glow that we can offer as our specific contribution to international politics.

Masaryk* based his politics on morality. Let us try, in a new time and in a new way, to restore this concept of politics. Let us teach ourselves and others that politics should be an expression of a desire to contribute to the happiness of the community rather than of a need to cheat or rape the community. Let us teach ourselves and others that politics can be not simply the art of the possible, especially if this means the art of speculation, calculation, intrigue, secret deals and pragmatic maneuvering, but that it can also be the art of the impossible, that is, the art of improving ourselves and the world.

We are a small country, yet at one time we were the spiritual crossroads of Europe. Is there a reason why we could not again become one? Would it not be another asset with which to repay the help of others that we are going to need?

Our homegrown Mafia, those who do not look out of the plane windows and who eat specially fed pigs, may still be around and at times may muddy the waters, but they are no longer our main enemy. Even less so is our main enemy any kind of international Mafia. Our main enemy today is our own bad traits: indifference to the common good, vanity, personal ambition, selfishness, and rivalry. The main struggle will have to be fought on this field.

There are free elections and an election campaign ahead of us. Let us not allow this struggle to dirty the so-far clean face of our gentle revolution. Let us not allow the sympathies of the world, which we have won so fast, to be equally rapidly lost through our becoming entangled in the jungle of skirmishes for power. Let us not allow the desire to serve oneself to bloom once again under the stately garb of the desire to serve the common good. It is not really important now which party, club or group prevails in the elections. The important thing is that the winners will be the best of us, in the moral, civic, political and professional sense, regardless of their political affiliations. The future policies and prestige of our state will depend on the personalities we select, and later, elect to our representative bodies.

My dear fellow citizens!

Three days ago I became the president of the republic as a consequence of your will, expressed through the deputies of the Federal Assembly. You have a right to expect me to mention the tasks I see before me as president.

The first of these is to use all my power and influence to ensure that we soon step up to the ballot boxes in a free election, and that our path toward this historic milestone will be dignified and peaceful.

My second task is to guarantee that we approach these elections as two self-governing nations who respect each other's interests, national identity, religious traditions, and symbols. As a Czech who has given his presidential oath to an important Slovak who is personally close to him, I feel a special obligation -- after the bitter experiences that Slovaks had in the past -- to see that all the interests of the Slovak nation are respected and that no state office, including the highest one, will ever be barred to it in the future.

My third task is to support everything that will lead to better circumstances for our children, the elderly, women, the sick, the hardworking laborers, the national minorities and all citizens who are for any reason worse off than others. High-quality food or hospitals must no longer be a prerogative of the powerful; they must be available to those who need them the most.

As supreme commander of the armed forces I want to guarantee that the defensive capability of our country will no longer be used as a pretext for anyone to stand in the way of courageous peace initiatives, the reduction of military service, the establishment of alternative military service and the overall humanization of military life.

In our country there are many prisoners who, though they may have committed serious crimes and have been punished for them, have had to submit -- despite the goodwill of some investigators, judges and above all defense lawyers -- to a debased judiciary process that curtailed their rights. They now have to live in prisons that do not strive to awaken the better qualities contained in every person, but rather humiliate them and destroy them physically and mentally. In a view of this fact, I have decided to declare a relatively extensive amnesty. At the same time I call on the prisoners to understand that forty years of unjust investigations, trials and imprisonments cannot be put right overnight, and to understand that the changes that are being speedily prepared still require time to implement. By rebelling, the prisoners would help neither society nor themselves. I also call on the public not to fear the prisoners once they are released, not to make their lives difficult, to help them, in the Christian spirit, after their return among us to find within themselves that which jails could not find in them: the capacity to repent and the desire to live a respectable life.

My honorable task is to strengthen the authority of our country in the world. I would be glad if other states respected us for showing understanding, tolerance and love for peace. I would be happy if Pope John Paul II and the Dalai Lama of Tibet could visit our country before the elections, if only for a day. I would be happy if our friendly relations with all nations were strengthened. I would be happy if we succeeded before the elections in establishing diplomatic relations with the Vatican and Israel. I would also like to contribute to peace by briefly visiting our close neighbors, the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany. Neither shall I forget our other neighbors -- fraternal Poland and the ever-closer countries of Hungary and Austria.

In conclusion, I would like to say that I want to be a president who will speak less and work more. To be a president who will not only look out of the windows of his airplane but who, first and foremost, will always be present among his fellow citizens and listen to them well.

You may ask what kind of republic I dream of. Let me reply: I dream of a republic independent, free, and democratic, of a republic economically prosperous and yet socially just; in short, of a humane republic that serves the individual and that therefore holds the hope that the individual will serve it in turn. Of a republic of well-rounded people, because without such people it is impossible to solve any of our problems -- human, economic, ecological, social, or political.

The most distinguished of my predecessors opened his first speech with a quotation from the great Czech educator Komensk_. Allow me to conclude my first speech with my own paraphrase of the same statement:

People, your government has returned to you!

* Tom _ Garrigue Masaryk (1850-1937), Czech statesman and philosopher, the first president of Czechoslovakia.

Cuban prisoners of conscience and the revolving door

2011-12-30T15:33:00.006-05:00

Amidst the news that the Castro regime is pardoning 2,991 inmates, of which 7 have been identified as political prisoners, another bit of news has gone relatively unnoticed. Long term prisoners of conscience continue to suffer and endure in the dictatorship's prison complex and new prisoners are being added. It is a revolving door.

Rafael Ibarra Roque, imprisoned since June 17, 1994

However, one that has been unjustly in prison since June 17, 1994 and remain there today is Rafael Ibarra Roque. He was arrested on that day and accused of sabotage without any evidence and on June 17, 1995 was condemned to 20 years in prison.

A man of conscience who became disaffected with the Cuban regime following his military service in Ethiopia where he served as a radio communications specialist. It is not difficult to imagine that the well documented atrocities committed their by Cuban troops in collaboration with their Ethiopian ally, and today convicted war criminal, Mengistu Haile Mariam would shock the conscience of a good man.

Rafael Ibarra Roque with his daughters Gladys and Rosalia

Returning to Cuba he ended his links to the military and the regime working on his own as a truck driver who also worked odd jobs as a handy man. In 1981, he married Maritza Lugo and would have two daughters with her: Gladys and Rosalia Ibarra.

In 1986, his brother, Agustín Ibarra, and three other men tried to leave the country on a raft and were captured by State Security agents with both the plans and materials to build a home made raft. Rafael was also detained and held in the “La Cabaña” prison for six months without charges and was later released.

It was there that he came into contact with Cuban political prisoners and became aware of the gross and systematic injustices taking place in Cuba. Outside of prison he began to associate with former political prisoners and to learn about the real history of Cuba.

In 1991 Rafael Ibarra Roque co-founded the Frank País November 30 Democratic Movement, and in 1992, was elected president of the group. The organization is nonviolent and rejects violent resistance. Onilda A. Jimenez in an essay she wrote about Rafael Ibarra Roque titled "The Forgotten" described what happened next:

"His new position as head of the Party placed him under the scrutiny of the authorities, who quickly found a pretext for jailing him. They accused him of sabotage, which they were never able to prove, and of which he declared his innocence. Nonetheless, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 1994. Apparently the sentencing of an innocent person is but a game or something similar to counting sheep before going to sleep."

In addition to the injustice of having their father imprisoned unjustly, Gladys y Rosalia Ibarra were targeted for harassment by Cuban state security. Maritza Lugo was also imprisoned for her human rights activism and would serve a total of five years in prison. The girls had both parents in prison at these times. It was because of this harassment that it was decided that Maritza and girls would go into exile and arrived there on January 11, 2002.

Rafael Ibarra Roque would continue to suffer torture both physical and psychological. At one point he was thrown into solitary confinement for having a copy of information from a United Nations special rapporteur. Despite the International Red Cross being barred from visiting Cuban prisons reports emerge of the torture taking place inside of them.

Gladys Ibarra Lugo, holding a photograph of: Rafael Ibarra Roque And Maritza Lugo Fernandez (Her Parents)

On October 21, 2010 having served 14 years of a 20 year prison sentence Rafael was offered his freedom conditioned upon going into exile which he refused and denounced as blackmail. He now has five years remaining of an unjust prison sentence. It is also important to remember that the 16 prisoners of conscience currently out of prison in Cuba from the group of the 75 who refused exile can also be returned to prison at any time to serve out their sentences.

New Cuban prisoner of conscience Ivonne Malleza

Finally, it is important to recall that new prisoners of conscience have been imprisoned and placed into maximum security confinement in the past days in Cuba. Ivonne Malleza was arrested at Fraternity Park in Havana on November 30 for having held a nonviolent protest.

She was missing for ten days.

It was only on December 10 that she was allowed a phone call to inform family and friends of her whereabouts. She was held at the Alternative Center for Processing Detainees (Centro Alternativo de Procesamiento de Detenidos) along with her husband Ignacio Martínez Montejo, who was also arrested at the demonstration. Now she has been transferred to Manto Negro, a maximum security prison. Both Ivonne Malleza Galano and Isabel Hayde Alvarez Mosqueda are facing 5 years in prison.

Below is the video of the November 30, 2011 protest in Cuba:

Chinese dissident sentenced to 10 years in prison for writings

2011-12-28T09:46:00.007-05:00

The court ignored all the points raised by the defense lawyer at the trial, so what point is there in appealing? - Zhang Qunxuan, wife of Chen Xi

Chen Xi

Amnesty International had warned that Chen Xi, detained on November 29, 2011 could be placed on trial at any time in a December 22 report. Below is the report by Human Rights in China on the trial and sentencing of Chen Xi.

Veteran Guizhou Activist Chen Xi Sentenced to Ten Years

by Human Rights i n China

2011-12-26

On the morning of December 26, the Guiyang Municipal Intermediate People’s Court of Guizhou Province sentenced veteran dissident and human rights activist Chen Xi (陈西), to ten years prison and three years’ deprivation of political right for “inciting subversion of state power.” This heavy sentence follows the nine-year term imposed on Sichuan dissident Chen Wei (陈卫) three days ago. Chen Xi insists on his innocence but will not appeal.

Chen Xi’s wife, Zhang Qunxuan (张群选), told Human Rights in China, “The court hearing started at 9 a.m. and concluded by 12:30 p.m. The prosecution against Chen Xi was based upon his publication of 36 articles overseas. Chen Xi’s lawyers, Sun Guangquan (孙光全) and Bai Min (白敏), defended him on his not-guilty plea. In his self-defense in court, Chen Xi stated, ‘All the activities I have been engaged in are just and honorable, all in the open. Since I was released from prison on 2005, State Security has had communications with me on a weekly basis. They are aware of everything that I have been doing, and everything can be put on the table. So why had the law enforcement [authorities] not pointed out that I was committing a crime?’ When the presiding judge allowed Chen Xi to make his final statement, Chen Xi said, ‘I am a law-abiding person. I respect the court’s decision; I will not appeal.’”

Zhang added, “We made a final request to see Chen Xi, but the presiding judge denied the request. They are really heartless. The prosecution took his writings out of context. Actually, Chen Xi was calling for democracy and human rights. This wish was [his] whole crime!”

“The Chinese authorities’ ongoing tactic of imprisoning Chinese citizens will not address the deepening social conflicts in China. Instead, it will intensify them,” said Sharon Hom, Executive Director of Human Rights in China. “The march of heavy sentences imposed on democracy activists should be a wake-up call to the international community: China is at a critical crossroads and these activists need effective and immediate support.”

This is Chen Xi’s third prison sentence. During the period of the 1989 Democracy Movement, he was sentenced to three years for establishing the Patriotic and Democratic Federation. After his release, he continued to work for democracy and engage in human rights activities. He was sentenced to another ten years in March 1996 for organizing the Guizhou branch of the China Democracy Party, and pressing for redress for the 1989 crackdown. While in prison, he was beaten savagely and repeatedly by other prisoners reportedly instigated by the prison authorities.

After his release from prison in 2005, Chen Xi and other Guizhou activists established the First Guizhou Citizens International Human Rights Symposium that they subsequently convened on a yearly basis. On this foundation, they formed the Guizhou Human Rights Seminar, a weekly study and discussion session, to promote human rights. On the eve of International Human Rights Day this year, the local authorities banned the seminar as an illegal organization.

Christmas in Cuba: Repression and Protests

2011-12-27T22:18:00.007-05:00

Even on Christmas repression continues in Cuba

Ivonne Malleza and two other nonviolent activists transferred to maximum security prison.

Cuban communists ended Christmas in 1969 and was only returned to the Cuban people when Pope John Paul II negotiated for it in conversations surrounding his 1998 visit to Cuba. Despite the formal return of Christmas, repression still takes place over the holidays on the tropical island. State Security does not go on holiday.

On Christmas day 2011 three Ladies in White Leticia Ramos Herrería, age 42, Sayma Lamas, age 43, and Elizabeth Pacheco Lamas, age 20 were beaten up and detained by state security agents. State security agents punched and kicked the women and stopped them from attending Christmas Mass. Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas was attacked and detained on his way to Mass on Christmas morning along with ten other dissidents by the political police who blocked their path with police cars and beat them up and detained them. Fariñas was released hours later at 7:30pm on Christmas day bruised and sore from the attack.

The visit of Pope Benedict XVI in the spring of 2012 presents opportunities for both the Church and the Cuban people to make important gains in both spiritual and material freedom. The visit of Pope John Paul II in 1998 saw the return of Christmas and during his visit a breath of freedom shook the island. Lists of political prisoners were presented to the Cuban government by the visiting Pontiff and several were released following his trip.

The news of the release of nearly 3,000 prisoners on December 23 as a humanitarian gesture ahead of the Pope's visit has so far meant the release of only 5 political prisoners. Although the lists are incomplete, the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation says that there are at least 66 identified political prisoners. Others place the number at 150. Either way these are partial estimates. No one knows, outside of the dictatorship itself, the total number of political prisoners. In the first 11 months of 2011 there have been over 3,500 documented arrests for political reasons.

In Mayabeque on December 24 activists march demanding the freedom of three imprisoned nonviolent activists

Meanwhile, Cubans are growing increasingly frustrated with the injustices visited upon them and their loved ones and they are losing their fear and taking to the streets in protest despite harsh repression. Cuban women such as Sara Marta Fonseca have been brutally beaten and detained for denouncing the mistreatment of others. Three non-violent Cuban activists: Ivonne Malleza Galano, Isabel Hayde Alvarez Mosqueda, and Ignacio Martínez Montero, Ivonne's husband were all sent to maximum security prisons at the same time that the dictatorship has announced the parole of over 2900 prisoners. Ivonne and Isabel were sent to Manto Negro prison. Amnesty International had expressed concern over Ivonne Malleza because she had been detained and held incomunicado for ten days.

In the neighborhood of Párraga in Havana activists take to the streets in protest on December 23.

Ivonne Malleza was arrested at Fraternity Park in Havana on November 30. It was only on December 10 that she was allowed a phone call to inform family and friends of her whereabouts. She was held at the Alternative Center for Processing Detainees (Centro Alternativo de Procesamiento de Detenidos) along with her husband Ignacio Martínez Montejo, who was also arrested at the demonstration. Now she has been transferred to Manto Negro, a maximum security prison. Both Ivonne Malleza Galano and Isabel Hayde Alvarez Mosqueda are facing 5 years in prison.

Nobel Peace Laureate Liu Xiaobo's birthday behind bars

2011-12-27T18:35:00.008-05:00

Liu Xiaobo turns 56 years old on December 28, 2011 in a Chinese prison. Also on December 26, 2011 Chen Xi was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his writings criticizing the communist party and on December 23 Chen Wei was condemned to 9 years for the same reason.

Liv Ullman read Liu Xiaobo's acceptance speech on December 10, 2010

Excerpts from the Acceptance Speech:

I Have No Enemies: My Final Statement

by Liu Xiaobo

Twenty years have passed, but the ghosts of June Fourth have not yet been laid to rest. Upon release from Qincheng Prison in 1991, I, who had been led onto the path of political dissent by the psychological chains of June Fourth, lost the right to speak publicly in my own country and could only speak through the foreign media. Because of this, I was subjected to year‑round monitoring, kept under residential surveillance (May 1995 to January 1996) and sent to Reeducation‑Through‑Labor (October 1996 to October 1999). And now I have been once again shoved into the dock by the enemy mentality of the regime.

But I still want to say to this regime, which is depriving me of my freedom, that I stand by the convictions I expressed in my "June Second Hunger Strike Declaration" twenty years ago ‑ I have no enemies and no hatred. None of the police who monitored, arrested, and interrogated me, none of the prosecutors who indicted me, and none of the judges who judged me are my enemies. Although there is no way I can accept your monitoring, arrests, indictments, and verdicts, I respect your professions and your integrity, including those of the two prosecutors, Zhang Rongge and Pan Xueqing, who are now bringing charges against me on behalf of the prosecution.

[...]

Hatred can rot away at a person's intelligence and conscience. Enemy mentality will poison the spirit of a nation, incite cruel mortal struggles, destroy a society's tolerance and humanity, and hinder a nation's progress toward freedom and democracy. That is why I hope to be able to transcend my personal experiences as I look upon our nation's development and social change, to counter the regime's hostility with utmost goodwill, and to dispel hatred with love.

[...]

I hope that I will be the last victim of China's endless literary inquisitions and that from now on no one will be incriminated because of speech.

Freedom of expression is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity, and the mother of truth. To strangle freedom of speech is to trample on human rights, stifle humanity, and suppress truth.

In order to exercise the right to freedom of speech conferred by the Constitution, one should fulfill the social responsibility of a Chinese citizen. There is nothing criminal in anything I have done. [But] if charges are brought against me because of this, I have no complaints.

Thank you, everyone.

Vaclav Havel on Dubcek and Obama: Moral Actions and Minor Compromises

2011-12-26T12:42:00.008-05:00

Cuban author and intellectual Carlos Alberto Montaner described Vaclav Havel as the man who loved freedom and that is true but he also loved moral actions and justice. Havel recognized that “Man is not an omnipotent master of the universe, allowed to do with impunity whatever he thinks, or whatever suits him at the moment. The world we live in is made of an immensely complex and mysterious tissue about which we know very little and which we must treat with utmost humility.” It is that humility which Havel underlines that explains his belief that moral actions no matter how small do matter.

Dubcek and Havel in 1989

In 1968, after Soviet tanks crushed the Prague Spring, an effort by Czechoslovak communist reformers to build socialism with a human face, Havel wrote the following to the Czechoslovak President Alexander Dubcek who had been one of the reformers later purged: "Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance."

Havel believed that moral actions, no matter how small or futile they may appear at the time can have profound consequences for both freedom and a just society. It is because the world is not a puzzle to be solved but incredibly much more complex that decisions of right and wrong made by each person have such great importance.

Havel and Obama

Over 40 years later, when President Barack Obama backed out of meeting with the Dalai Lama due to an upcoming trip to China, Havel offered the corollary to the theorem expounded to Dubcek in 1968 at the October 12, 2009 of the Forum 2000 conference he had organized:

I believe that when the new Laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize postpones receiving the Dalai Lama until after he has accomplished his visit to China, he makes a small compromise, a compromise which actually has some logic to it. However, there arises a question as to whether those large, serious compromises do not have their origin and roots in precisely these tiny and very often more or less logical compromises.

The New York Times in their October 13, 2009 issue in an article titled Vaclav Havel, Still a Man of Morals and Mischief: reported that in an interview that was supposed to be about the revolutions that overturned communism 20 years earlier that President Havel raised the question asking if it was true that President Obama had refused to meet the Dalai Lama? Havel replied:

“It is only a minor compromise,” Mr. Havel said of the nonreception of the Tibetan leader. “But exactly with these minor compromises start the big and dangerous ones, the real problems. “This is actually the first time I really do mind something Obama did,” Mr. Havel said. He minded it “much more” than Mr. Obama’s recent decision not to station elements of a missile-defense system in the Czech Republic, a move that several Central European politicians criticized but that Mr. Havel noted was ultimately “an internal American decision.”

In other words immoral actions no matter how small or "pragmatic" they appear at the time can also have profound consequences that can lead to an end of freedom and the rise of profound injustices.

Among the world leaders saddened by Havel's passing was Barack Obama who said that his words will echo through the ages. I hope that President Obama and others will remember the words directed at him in October of 2009.

A Christmas Miracle: The End of the Soviet Union

2011-12-25T13:39:00.005-05:00

Christmas returns to the Kremlin

Twenty years ago today on December 25, 1991 a regime born in 1917 and formerly named in 1922 came to an end. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) or as it was also known the Soviet Union was formerly brought to an end on Christmas day and replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States. The last day of the Soviet Union was on Christmas day. Let that sink in for a moment.

Now there are those who claim that the world is a less stable place without the Soviet Union, and Mikhail Gorbachev claims that it could have been reformed. Academic Stephen F. Cohen goes further and quotes approvingly both by Putin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky with the adage: "Anyone who does not regret the breakup of the Soviet Union has no heart. And anyone who thinks it can be reconstructed has no head." Vaclav Havel, a man who had both head and heart understood why this kind of regime was so profoundly inhuman: "As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it."

The optimism expressed by Gorbachev and the nostalgia of Cohen fails to take into account the human cost of the USSR. The Soviet Union took the lives of an estimated 61 million human beings. It was a brutal and evil system that spawned other brutal regimes around the globe that claimed over a 100 million lives. Their lives mattered. Vaclav Havel in his 1990 New Years Speech called on his countrymen not to forget:

"The rivers of blood that have flowed in Hungary, Poland, Germany and recently in such a horrific manner in Romania, as well as the sea of blood shed by the nations of the Soviet Union, must not be forgotten. First of all because all human suffering concerns every other human being. But more than this, they must also not be forgotten because it is these great sacrifices that form the tragic background of today's freedom or the gradual emancipation of the nations of the Soviet Bloc, and thus the background of our own newfound freedom."

The numbers of lives lost is but the material accounting and does not take into account the spiritual ruin visited upon billions and its aftermath to the present day. The late Czech president explained it in the very same address:

"The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension, and for many of us they represented only psychological peculiarities, or they resembled gone-astray greetings from ancient times, a little ridiculous in the era of computers and spaceships."

The destruction both material and spiritual generated by the Soviet Union over seventy years will take centuries to repair and transcend. That hard truth may not be cause for celebration but the end of the system that wreaked so much damage is cause for celebration not regret. To do otherwise is to be heartless. The fact that it happened without violence on Christmas day in 1991 is also cause for joy.

The Cuban Resistance Calls on a Moment of Prayer for December 24th, Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T15:58:00.002-05:00

Join in a moment of prayer at 8pm on Christmas Eve for a Free Cuba

Taken from Pedazos de la Isla:

The Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Resistance Front and other dissident organizations have called on all Cubans in and out of the island to participate in a moment of prayer at 8 PM tonight, December 24th, Christmas Eve or “Nochebuena” as Cubans and other Hispanics refer to the day. According to the dissidents themselves, the prayers are for a free Cuba, and a better future where there are no political prisoners and excessive aggressions and divisions amongst the Cuban people. Among the many activists who have participated in this calling are Antunez, Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, Luis Felipe Rojas, Caridad Caballero Batista, Idania Yanez Contreras, Raul Risco Perez, Berta Soler, Angel Moya and Librado Linares.

Every 24th of the month is the Day of the Resistance, where dissidents of diverse provinces and pro-democracy organizations participate in peaceful actions against the Castro tyranny and in demand of human rights for ALL Cubans. This date is usually marked by public protests, marches, or the handing out of pro-freedom pamphlets, but this time activists have opted for a moment of prayer, also because of the significance of the religious date.

Below is the audio of numerous opposition activists sharing their wishes for a future Cuba, as well as their reasons for calling on a moment of prayer. The audio is Spanish, there is no translation yet, but among the wishes are the freedom of all political prisoners, freedom for the activists Ivonne Malleza, Ignacio Martinez and Isabel Haydee (detained for 3 weeks now for saying the Cuban people are hungry), the end of family divisions, the end of the dictatorship, and many other thoughts of goodwill. There are hundreds of dissidents participating in this call, and only some appear here in this video:

Raul Castro's bait and switch

2011-12-23T21:33:00.008-05:00

"Raul Castro authorizes exits from small jails but still does not announce exits from the big jail." - Yoani Sanchez, on Raul Castro's announcement tonight

Expectations that the long hated travel restrictions placed on Cubans by the dictatorship would be lifted were heightened today. Deutsche Press-Agentur reported that "Rumours were rife Friday that Cuban President Raul Castro might lift travel restrictions and allow people to go in and out of the country more freely." Reuters reported that Cuba was "abuzz with speculation that President Raul Castro will soon announce policy changes making it easier for Cubans to travel abroad from their communist island." AFP journalist and photographer Alex Ogle tweeted at 7:30am EST today: "Keep eye out today for Cuba to lift a 50-year travel ban for its citizens > expected announcement will be historic."

Raul Castro poured cold water on the expected announcement reported the Associated Press claiming that Cubans exercising their right to enter an exit their homeland could effect the stability of the regime: “Some have been pressuring us to take the step … as if we were talking about something insignificant, and not the destiny of the revolution.” Over the years the rumors that the travel restrictions placed on Cubans by the dictatorship would be lifted has circulated. Rumors that Cuban regime is about to lift travel restrictions are as reliable as the rumors that Fidel Castro has died.

Instead the big announcement is that over 2,900 prisoners are to be released. International news agencies almost immediately report that Cuban officials have announced that Alan Gross is not among the 2900 to be released. According to Elsa Morejon, Raul Castro announced that 2988 prisoners are to be released. 13 of them are women. 88 are foreigners from 25 countries. Former prisoner of conscience Angel Moya tweeted that nothing would be resolved with the release of the prisoners because Cuba wants freedom. The online publication Convivencia (Coexistence) tweeted that they were gladdened that nearly 3,000 prisoners would be released to mark 4OO years of the Virgin of Charity in Cuba and the Pope's visit to the island next year.

Yoani Sanchez placed the releases in the larger context of migration reform in a tweet: "Raul Castro authorizes exits from small jails but still does not announce exits from the big jail."

Requiescat in pace, Vaclav Havel

2011-12-23T17:48:00.009-05:00

"Truth and love must triumph over lies and hatred." - Vaclav Havel

State Funeral for Vaclav Havel at Prague's St. Vitus Cathedral

Today, a state funeral was held for Vaclav Havel at Prague's St. Vitus Cathedral and attended by world leaders, artists, dissidents, friends and family. The Archbishop of Prague Dominik Duka, who led the funeral mass had also spent time in jail with Vaclav Havel during the Communist era. This was followed by a private ceremony in Prague's crematorium with family and friends.

The funeral ended with the Czechoslovak national anthem and Havel´s voice from a recording said his famous motto: "Truth and love must triumph over lies and hatred."

Thousands of candles placed in tribute to Havel in Prague's Wenceslas Square

Havel, is no longer with us, in the physical sense but his words and legacy live on and will continue. David Remnick in the New Yorker on December 18, 2011 offered a reading list titled: Havel and Beyond where he cites the "top ten" hits and cites Letters to Olga and Open Letters: Selected Writings, 1965-1990 as Havel's most important works of non-fiction. In Open Letters Remnick highlights the importance of the essays “Dear Dr. Husak,” “The Power of the Powerless,” and “Anatomy of a Reticence.”

However, of equally great importance are Havel's books Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karl Huizdala published in 1986 while still a dissident in Czechoslovakia, Summer Meditations published in 1993 following the "Velvet Divorce" when the country split nonviolently into the Czech and Slovak republics. Havel would later become the first president of the Czech Republic in January of 1993. Finally, To the Castle and Back published in 2008 offers a look back over the years of the Havel presidency.

The Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities in addition to highlighting the importance of Havel's The Power of the Powerless essay also cited his important 1990 New Years Address explaining that "[t]his was not a President speaking in platitudes. Havel of course criticized the communists. But his critique was universal, aimed at our entire civilization:"

When I talk about contaminated moral atmosphere … I am talking about all of us. We had all become used to the totalitarian system and accepted it as an unchangeable fact and thus helped to perpetuate it. In other words, we are all — though naturally to differing extremes — responsible for the operation of the totalitarian machinery; none of us is just its victim: we are all also its co-creators.

Many of Vaclav Havel's essays are available online at his official website both in the original Czech and in English.

Requiescat in pace, Vaclav Havel

Chinese Dissident Chen Wei condemned to 9 years in prison for his writings

2011-12-23T13:06:00.007-05:00

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." - Elie Wiesel

Chen Wei: 9 years in prison for his writings

Two years ago today it was Liu Xiaobo sentenced to 11 years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power” and today it is Chen Wei condemned to 9 years under the same charge. On March 25, 2011 Liu Xianbin was sentenced to 10 years in prison under the same charge. Today, the BBC reported that Chen Wei told the court he was not guilty and "that democracy will prevail."

All of these activists and many more are being imprisoned for exercising their freedom of expression and are prisoners of conscience. In addition, Chinese dissident Mao Hengfeng has suffered brutal beatings and torture for her human rights activism.

China: Harsh sentence for activist Chen Wei condemned

by Amnesty International

The nine-year jail sentence handed down to activist Chen Wei for writing critical articles about the Communist Party is unacceptable, Amnesty International said today, and urged Chinese authorities to release him immediately and unconditionally.

Chen Wei was sentenced for “inciting subversion of state power”. His lawyer, Zheng Jianwei, said the trial lasted less than two hours and added that his family said he would not appeal.

“Chen Wei is being punished for peacefully expressing his ideas,” said Catherine Baber, Deputy Asia-Pacific Director for Amnesty International.

“I wish we could say we were surprised by this sentence, but we have seen the Chinese government use this vague charge of “incitement” over and over to silence its critics and suppress discussion of human rights and political change,” she added.

According to the indictment, seen by Amnesty International, Chen Wei’s charge stems from essays he allegedly posted online and “sent to overseas organizations,” including New York-based human rights group, Human Rights in China.

“This is the toughest sentence given to anyone who was arrested and charged during the so-called Jasmine crackdown, when the government rounded up activists out of fear for potential demonstrations inspired by the Middle East and North Africa,” Catherine Baber said.

“We think the government is punishing Chen Wei for his many years of activism and trying to send a strong message to any would-be critics.”

Chen Wei, 42, was one of more than 130 activists detained after the U.S.-based news site, Boxun, reported an anonymous appeal for people to stage protests across China last February.

The online call to protest, inspired by the uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa and the “Jasmine Revolution” in Tunisia, led to one of the harshest crackdowns on dissent in China in recent years.

Government critics, bloggers, artists, “netizens” and other activists were detained, the vast majority of whom have been released without charges or on bail.

Authorities in Suining City, Sichuan Province, detained Chen Wei on 20 February and formally arrested him on 28 March. Since then, he has been held at the Suining City Detention Centre. His case was sent back twice to prosecutors because of a lack of evidence.

Zheng Jianwei said he was only able to meet with his client twice. Another lawyer reportedly met with Chen Wei once. The activist has only been allowed to communicate with his family in writing.

Chen Wei served as one of the leaders of the 1989 student democracy movement, for which he was imprisoned until January 1991. In May 1992, authorities arrested him again, this time for commemorating the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and for organizing a political party. They sentenced him to five years for “counterrevolutionary propaganda and incitement.”

Chinese law does not define the meaning of “subversion,” nor does the law or related regulations or interpretations adequately define what it means to incite others to subvert state power.

Amnesty International is calling on the Chinese government to release other activists who have been held on the vague charge of "inciting subversion of state power," including:

"Netizen" Liang Haiyi, reportedly taken away by police on 19 February in the northern city of Harbin for sharing videos and information about the "Jasmine Revolution" on the Internet. Liang Haiyi, perhaps the first person to be arrested as part of the Jasmine crackdown, is reportedly being held on suspicion of "inciting subversion" and could be tried at any time.

Veteran activist Chen Youcai, also known as Chen Xi, who was detained 29 November for being a member of the Guizhou Human Rights Forum, which authorities declared was an illegal organization. Chen Xi could stand trial at any time and, like Chen Wei, could face a harsh sentence due to his long work as a rights advocate.

Human rights lawyer, Gao Zhisheng, who was sent back to prison last week after “violating” his probation, according to reports in China’s state media. Authorities charged him with “inciting subversion” in December 2006 and sentenced him to a three–year suspended prison sentence. He was initially held under house arrest and then subjected to enforced disappearance repeatedly over nearly three years.

Nobel Peace Prize Winner Liu Xiaobo, who was awarded the prize in absentia on 10 December 2010. Liu Xiaobo was sentenced in 2009 to 11 years in prison for his role in drafting Charter 08, and other writings which called for democratic reforms. His wife, artist Liu Xia, is under illegal house arrest. She has not been charged with any crime and Amnesty International has called for authorities to immediately restore her freedom.

Sichuan-based activist Liu Xianbin, who was sentenced in March to 10 years in prison for his role in promoting democratic reform, including his support of the Charter 08 petition movement.

Beijing-based activist Hu Jia, who was released from prison in June after serving three and a half years for "inciting subversion" but now lives in conditions equivalent to house arrest along with his wife, Zeng Jinyan, and young daughter.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/news/china-amnesty-international-condemns-harsh-sentence-activist-chen-wei-2011-12-23

Vaclav Havel's constant solidarity on behalf of China's Liu Xiaobo

2011-12-23T10:41:00.010-05:00

"It's up to all of us to try, and those that say that individuals are not capable of changing anything are only looking for excuses." - Vaclav Havel, Interview with Amnesty International in 2011

2 years ago today the trial against Liu Xiaobo began

On the day that the world bid farewell to Vaclav Havel an e-mail arrived from the Human Rights Foundation that said: "Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo: In a Chinese Prison but Not Forgotten." It was two years ago today, December 23, 2009 that the trial against the human rights defender on charges of "inciting subversion of state power" began and ended on Christmas day when the Beijing Municipal No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court issued a guilty verdict and 11-year prison sentence. There was widespread international condemnation of the trial and verdict. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay issued a statement of concern that the decision "represents a serious setback for the protection and promotion of human rights in China," and described the sentence as "extremely harsh."

Liu Xiaobo was convicted of "inciting subversion of state power" but it is important to highlight what this Orwellian phrase seeks to obfuscate that the Chinese dissident was imprisoned for his role in drafting and circulating an open letter requesting reforms. A group of 303 Chinese writers, intellectuals, lawyers, journalists, retired Party officials, workers, peasants, and businessmen issued this open letter - "Charter 08" - on December 9, 2008 calling for legal reforms, democracy and protection of human rights in China. This is the reason Liu Xiaobo was placed on trial and condemned to 11 years in prison.

Czech Expresident Havel Delivers Protest Regarding Liu Xiaobo Imprisonment to Chinese Embassy

Many remain silent about the human rights situation in China because of its economic might and claim that nothing can be done, but Vaclav Havel never held that view. In fact, he protested Western silence. Just days following the trial verdict on January 7, 2010, Vaclav Havel walked over to the Chinese Embassy in Prague and rang the doorbell on three occasions before posting his protest letter through the outdoor embassy mail slot. The former Czech president turned to reporters present and explained what he was doing:

“We are here now because we are asking the Chinese president and Chinese government not to repeat what happened to us 33 years ago ,where fighters for freedom were pursued and persecuted.”

On January 19, 2010 Havel met with the Executive Director of Human Rights in China, Sharon Hom, and engaged her in a dialogue/interview about Liu Xiaobo, Charter 08 and the struggle for democratic reform in China. When asked about the similarities between China today and Czechloslovakia in 1977 explained that:

The similarities, I would say, are in the basic structure of human rights reflected in a democratic system, which of course the regime doesn’t want. The regime wishes for the dictatorship of one party. I think this is where Charter 08 and Charter 77 are similar: they have similar targets and similar messages to deliver to the [respective] regimes.

On February 3, 2010 both Czech and Slovak members of parliament nominated Liu Xiaobo for the Nobel Peace Prize. The nomination was also endorsed by Vaclav Havel and many of the former spokespersons of Charter 77. The 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, Herta Müller, in a letter to the Nobel Foundation on behalf of Liu Xiaobo wrote:

I have urgent request to make to you today. As you know, Vaclav Havel nominated the Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo for the Nobel Peace Prize 2010.[...]I, too, believe that Liu Xiaobo deserves the Nobel Peace Prize because in the face of countless threats from the Chinese regime and great risk to his life, he has fought unerringly for the freedom of the individual.

Despite warnings and threats against Norway and the Nobel Committee by the Chinese government Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010. Desmond Tutu and Vaclav Havel on December 5, 2010 called on the Chinese government to release Liu Xiaobo in order that he be able to accept the Nobel Peace Prize or risk losing its international credibility. The Chinese regime not only refused to release Liu Xiaobo but his wife, Liu Xia, was held under house arrest and was unable to represent her husband in Oslo to receive the award. Instead Liv Ullman read the statement Liu Xiaobo gave at his trial on December 23, 2009 titled I Have No Enemies: My Final Statement. Before being sentenced to 11 years in prison on December 25, 2009 addressing the court in the previous mentioned statement he concluded:

I hope that I will be the last victim of China's endless literary inquisitions and that from now on no one will be incriminated because of speech.
Freedom of expression is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity, and the mother of truth. To strangle freedom of speech is to trample on human rights, stifle humanity, and suppress truth.

In order to exercise the right to freedom of speech conferred by the Constitution, one should fulfill the social responsibility of a Chinese citizen. There is nothing criminal in anything I have done. [But] if charges are brought against me because of this, I have no complaints.

On December 8, 2011 Vaclav Havel signed on as one of the members of a new International Committee to Support Liu Xiaobo. Liu Xiaobo's Nobel Peace Prize placed a spotlight on China's human rights violations. Hopefully his courageous example and Vaclav Havel's solidarity will shame those who remain silent before this ongoing injustice.

Občan Havel - Citizen Havel + English Subtitles

2011-12-22T18:47:00.002-05:00

The documentary runs a little a little over two hours and offers a behind the scenes look at Vaclav Havel as president of the Czech Republic. Prague Radio offered a review of the documentary Citizen Havel on their website in 2008. An excerpt outlines the substance of this important work:

"For more than a decade, from autumn 1992, when Václav Havel was deciding whether to run for the post of Czech president, to January 2003, when he left Prague Castle for the last time, director Pavel Koutecký followed the president everywhere he went. He shot hours and hours of footage, footage that reveals everything from picking his way through Machiavellian post-election negotiations to giving restaurant tips to the Rolling Stones."

Amnesty International: Vaclav Havel an amazing human rights leader

2011-12-22T18:38:00.003-05:00

Amnesty International's Steve Crawshaw pays tribute to the great human rights leader Vaclav Havel.

"The world has lost an amazing human rights leader. Vaclav Havel embodied the spirit of thousands of brave human rights defenders, who challenge oppression and the denial of human dignity. He did so by combining humor and a steadfast determination to fight for fundamental rights no matter the cost to his personal well-being. The pressure he brought on his government while a prisoner of conscience and the spotlight he shone on repression helped bring human rights to millions of people. When he later led the government, he worked diligently to ensure that the rights of freedom of expression and opinion were respected and protected and that the people he governed would not, again, be imprisoned for exercising their basic human rights. We thank Havel, once again, for his courage and leadership as we bid him farewell."

From the rooftop to the open balcony: Porno para Ricardo, U2 and The Beatles

2011-12-21T17:59:00.006-05:00

Today, El Nuevo Herald reported that the Cuban punk rock band, Porno para Ricardo, had initiated a protest. Now watching a video posted by the band of the events that led to the news story a different narrative appears.

Porno para Ricardo is a punk rock band that has been censored and prohibited from playing in public. It appears that drawing inspiration from The Beatles who on January 30, 1969 held their last public performance on the rooftop of their building at Apple Records. It was unannounced and ended with the London police shutting them down because the concert had left to traffic stoppages because drivers and pedestrians stopped commuting to watch the concert. The Beatles strategically and secretly placed recording cameras to document the entire affair.

It appears that Porno para Ricardo did the same thing. The only difference being that it was done on an open balcony and not the roof top. The lead singer of the band, Gorki Aguila announces into the camera because they were not allowed to play concerts in public on International Human Rights Day (December 10) that they were going to play at their studio "La Paja Recold." Their are cameras outside on the ground and on the balcony itself recording the happening.

Porno para Ricardo are not the first to steal this stunt from the Beatles, the Irish rock band U2 on two occasions ripped off The Beatles with two rooftop performances. The first, like The Beatles unannounced, was on March 27, 1987 on the roof of of the Republic Liquor Store on the corner of 7th and Main Street in Los Angeles and involved the police. The second was on February 27, 2009 on top of the BBC Broadcasting House in London.

The difference between the roof top live concerts by The Beatles/U2 and Porno para Ricardo is that in Cuba the police didn't even bother to show up and tell the band to stop the public disruption. In communist Cuba the state security agents just shut off electricity to the entire building.

U2 has spoken out on behalf of Oscar Elias Biscet, something Gorki Aguila did first, and called out for a free Cuba. Wonder if they'd be welcomed to play a concert in Cuba today?

Porno para Ricardo should feel in good company because when The Beatles were conquering the world with their music in the 1960s they and their music were forbidden in Cuba. The Castro dictatorship banned their music and also banned The Beatles from ever playing on the island. Decades later, after John Lennon had been assassinated, they erected a statue of him.

Václav Havel's speech in Miami to the Cuban people

2011-12-19T15:05:00.005-05:00

In 2004 Havel would exchange letters with Oswaldo Paya on the nature of nonviolent struggle and what was taking place in Cuba. Months prior to his passing he would send a letter of solidarity to Oscar Elias Biscet upon his release from prison. However, it was on September 23, 2002 that he addressed the Cuban people at Florida International University from the capital of the Cuban exile: Miami. Below is the full text of his address.

AP / Petr David Josek. Former Czech President Vaclav Havel

Learning to Speak Their Own Language:
Václav Havel

Mr. President, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, and to all those citizens of Cuba who are listening to us:

I am here in Florida for the first time in my life, and Florida is also the last state in the United States - and the last place on the whole American continent - that I will be visiting as President of my country. It was my own choice to come to Florida, and I have chosen it, among other things, because it is from here that I want to extend my greetings to all Cubans - both to those who live here, and to those who live at home, in Cuba.

Every modern, freedom-loving person feels, or at least ought to feel, a sense of solidarity both with those who are prevented from living in their home country or from freely visiting it, and with those who are forced to live in their country in a state of constant fear, and who cannot leave it and return to it of their own free will.

Václav Havel speaks about the Cuban regime in 2007

But there are people who should naturally feel this kind of solidarity far more intensively than others. I am referring to those of us who experienced first hand, on our own skins, as it were, the oppressive weight of life under a totalitarian system of the communist type, or who may even have tried to resist that system and, in doing so, experienced just how important the solidarity and help offered by people from freer countries was.

I think that one of the most diabolical instruments for subjugating some people and fooling others is the special Communist language. It is a language full of subterfuge, ideological jargon, meaningless phrases and stereotypical figures of speech. To people who have not seen through its mendacity or who have never had to live in a world manipulated by it, this language can appear very attractive. At the same time, in others, this very same language can evoke fear and horror and force them into permanent state of dissimulation.

In my country, too, entire generations of people once let themselves be led astray by this kind of language with its fine words about justice, peace and the necessity of fighting against those who, allegedly in the interests of evil foreign powers, resisted the power that spoke this language. The great advantage of this language lies in the fact that all its parts are firmly bound together in a closed system of dogmas that excludes anything that does not fit.

Any idea with a hint of originality or independence - as well as any word that is not part of the official vocabulary - is labeled an ideological diversion - almost, it would seem, before anyone can express it. The web of dogmas deployed to justify any arbitrary action by the ruling power, therefore, usually takes a utopian form - that is, an artificial construct that contains a whole set of reasons why everything that does not fit the structure or that reaches beyond it must be suppressed, forbidden or destroyed for the sake of some happy future.

The easy thing to do is to accept this language, to believe in it or, at least, to adapt to it. It is very difficult to maintain one’s own point of view, though common sense may tell you a hundred times over that you are right, as long as that means either revolting against the language of the powers-that-be, or simply refusing to use it.

A system of persecutions, of bans, of informers, of compulsory elections, of spying on one’s neighbors, of censorship and, ultimately, of concentration camps is hidden behind a veil of beautiful words that have utterly no shame in calling enslavement a “higher form of freedom,” of calling independent thinking a way of “supporting imperialism,” or labeling the entrepreneurial spirit a way of “impoverishing one’s fellow humans” and calling human rights a “bourgeois fiction.”

My country’s experience was simple: when the internal crisis of the totalitarian system grows so deep that it becomes clear to everyone, and when an more and more people learn to speak their own language and reject the hollow, mendacious language of the powers that be, it means that freedom is remarkably close, if not directly within reach. All of a sudden, it seems that the king is naked and the mysterious radiant energy that comes from free speech and free actions turns out to be more powerful than the strongest army, police force, or party organization, stronger than the greatest power of a centrally directed and centrally devastated economy, or of the centrally controlled and centrally enslaved media, those chief propagators of the mendacious language of the official utopia.

Our world, as a whole, is not in the best of shape and the direction it is headed in may well be quite ambivalent. But this does not mean that we are permitted to give up on free and cultivated thinking and to replace it with a set of utopian clichés. That would not make the world a better place, it would only make it worse. On the contrary, it means that we must do more for our own freedom, and that of others.

May all Cubans live in freedom and enjoy independence and prosperity! To all those who have not lost the will to resist arbitrary force and lies, may your dreams be fulfilled! And may Oswaldo Payá Sardinas, the great champion of human rights in Cuba, be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and may this award strengthen the courage of all the Cuban people to take up non-violent resistance against an oppressive regime!

Florida International University,
Miami, Florida, September 23, 2002

Cuban dissidents on the passing of Vaclav Havel

2011-12-18T21:27:00.008-05:00

Over twitter on Sunday Cuban dissidents expressed their condolences, prayers and mourning for Vaclav Havel. At the same time many recognized the solidarity he had demonstrated on their behalf over the years. The English translation is on top and the original Spanish in bold just below.

Guillermo Fariñas Hernández

Independent Journalist and Sakharov prize winner Guillermo Fariñas Hernández tweeted:

An icon of Democracy and liberty has died. God bless the memory of Vaclav Havel.
Murio un icono de la Democracia y la Libertad. Dios bendiga la memoria de Vaclav Havel.

Pedro Argüelles Morán

Former prisoner of conscience of the group of the 75 Pedro Argüelles Morán tweeted

Havel is an example for those engaged in civic and pro-democratic struggle. God take him to his bosom.
Havel es todo un ejemplo para los luchadores civilistas y pro~democraticos. Dios lo acoja en su seno.

Argüelles Morán further tweeted:

Vaclav Havel is gone physically, because spiritually, he will always be present among those engaged in the civic struggle for fundamental rights and freedoms.

Havel ha desaparecido fisicamente,porque espiritualmente,siempre estara presente entre los luchadores civilista a favor de los derechos y libertades fundamentales.

Yoani Sanchez

Cuban blogger and philologist Yoani Sanchez tweeted that

Vaclav Havel’s book "The power of the powerless" helped me find my voice, to recognize myself as a civic being. Thank you teacher!
"El poder de los sin poder" libro de Vaclav Havel que me ayudo a encontrar mi voz, a reconocerme como ente civico. Gracias maestro!

She also tweeted that

Vaclav Havel had passed away and we barely started to walk the path he walked dozens of years ago :-(
Vaclav Havel y nosotros apenas hemos comenzado a transitar por un camino que el emprendio hace varias decadas :-(

Oswaldo Payá and Vaclav Havel

Leader of the Christian Liberation Movement and Sakharov prize winner Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas tweeted today that

Havel, precursor and guide to liberation in this new era. God receive you, friend in solidarity with the cause of democracy in Cuba.
Havel, un precursor y guía de la liberación en esta nueva era. Dios te reciba, amigo solidario con la causa de la democracia en Cuba.

Oswaldo further tweeted:

Personally I lose an inspiring friend, from whom I received a great education. Always grateful to Havel for the reception he gave me.
Personalmente pierdo un amigo ,un inspirador, del cual recibi una gran enseñanza. Siempre agradeceré a Havel la acogida que me dio.

Dagoberto Valdes

Dagoberto Valdes of Coexistence Magazine tweeted:

Havel has died. The world has won a symbol of the "power of the powerless." Coexistence Magazine offers its condolences and prayers.

Havel ha muerto.El mundo gana un simbolo del "poder de los sin poder". La revista Convivencia ofrece sus condolencias y oraciones.

Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia

Former prisoner of conscience of the group of the 75, Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia tweeted

The death of former Czech Vaclav Havel, a friend of Cuba has caused deep sorrow. A great man has died.

Profundo dolor nos ha causado la noticia del fallecimiento del expresidente Checo Vaclav Havel, gran amigo de Cuba. Ha muerto un gran hombre.

Vaclav Havel: A great and good man

2011-12-18T17:50:00.015-05:00

I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions. - Vaclav Havel, Speech of October 1989, accepting a peace prize

Official photo of mourning taken from Vaclav Havel's official website.

Václav Havel, passed away this morning at the age of 75. Czechs, world leaders, dissidents and friends of freedom worldwide mourn his loss and are shaken by it. He was the steadfast friend who did not bend to political opportunism and held other world leaders accountable when they abandoned principle. One of his last public statements was an expression of solidarity on behalf of political prisoners in Belarus.

Lord Acton in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton dated April 5, 1887 stated: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority." It is precisely because of men like Václav Havel that Acton must insert the world "almost."

How many presidents would begin a New Year's Address address with the following sentiment: "I do not think you put me into this office so that I, of all people, should also lie to you," and then proceed to speak the hard truths confronting the nation? Václav Havel did on January 1, 1990:

I assume you did not propose me for this office so that I, too, would lie to you.
Our country is not flourishing. The enormous creative and spiritual potential of our nations is not being used sensibly. Entire branches of industry are producing goods that are of no interest to anyone, while we are lacking the things we need. A state which calls itself a workers' state humiliates and exploits workers. Our obsolete economy is wasting the little energy we have available. A country that once could be proud of the educational level of its citizens spends so little on education that it ranks today as seventy-second in the world. We have polluted the soil, rivers and forests bequeathed to us by our ancestors, and we have today the most contaminated environment in Europe. Adults in our country die earlier than in most other European countries.

Living in truth as both a dissident and later as a head of state while defending and embracing human rights no matter how remote the chances for success are the reasons why many are celebrating the life of Václav Havel.

In August of 1969 in a letter to the recently overthrown Czechoslovak Communist Party chairman Alexander Dubček following the crushing of the Prague Spring by Soviet tanks he wrote: "Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance."

Like Gandhi, Havel believed that the means are everything and determine the ends. Both Gandhi and Havel are anti-Machiavellian. Havel was an admirer of Gandhi. On February 8, 1994 in New Delhi while accepting the Indira Gandhi prize Havel outlined his influence:

“I am one of Mahatma Gandhi's admirers, and, if I may be so bold, I believe that a reflection of his life's work might even be seen in the attempt my friends and I made, in Charter 77, to create a nonviolent opposition to the totalitarian regime in our country. This aspect of our activity later had a positive influence on the course of our anti-totalitarian revolution in 1989.”

Hopefully the outpouring of love and affection for Václav Havel will inspire other politicians to follow his example and join that small pantheon of great and good men who have also been statesmen.

Czechs mourning Havel

Václav Havel, not only played an important role in bringing about a nonviolent end to communism in Czechoslovakia, but continued his solidarity with dissidents in other countries for the remainder of his life. He had successful presidencies first in Czechoslovakia and later in the Czech republic. The politics of truth telling he promulgated transcended the struggle against communism and remain relevant today.

Every year at the Forum 2000 that he organized in which world leaders, philosophers and artists participated (where there was always a place for dissidents and recently exiled prisoners of conscience to take part) in a conversation on the pressing issues of the day and to seek solutions. Today on their website Forum 2000 issued the following statement regarding the passing of Václav Havel:

Today, December 18, 2011, Václav Havel, the founder of the Forum 2000 Foundation and former President of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, has passed away. President Havel was a lifelong fighter for freedom and human dignity and a deeply thoughtful person, troubled by the indifference of our civilization to its own future. The idea for the Forum 2000 Conference originated in 1997, when, together with the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel, and philanthropist Yohei Sasakawa, he invited world leaders to Prague to discuss the challenges humanity was facing on the threshold of a new millennium. Since then, Forum 2000 conferences continue to address topics ranging from the state of democracy and human rights to interfaith dialogue, environmental sustainability of the economic growth, the importance of the rule of law, or the role of media.

Václav Havel´s legacy will be the emphasis on the importance of freedom and democracy for a successful development of the society, insistence on the universality of human rights, or the indispensability of moral basis for all kinds of human endeavor. We will always remember Václav Havel for the courage and modesty with which he defended these principles.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Václav Havel

His Holiness the Dalai Lama tweeted about his old friend who had just passed: "The best tribute to honor and remember Václav Havel is to work as best we can towards building a more peaceful, open and just world."

Requiescat in pace Václav Havel, great defender and friend of freedom. A great and good man.

Please extend your condolences online for Václav Havel, the first president of the Czech Republic.

Laura Pollán posthumously awarded the Democracy Service Medal

2011-12-15T10:54:00.016-05:00

Honoring Laura Pollán two months after her untimely death

Democracy Service Award ceremony for Laura Pollán

Yesterday, December 14, 2011 marked two months since a mysterious and sudden illness claimed the life of Cuban human rights defender Laura Pollán at a Havana hospital in Cuba. It was also a day of celebration of her life and work on behalf of Cubans as well as friends and family recognizing Laura's martyrdom simultaneously in Havana and Washington DC.

Yolanda Huerga, representative of Ladies in White in the United States and her husband former prisoner of conscience Manuel Vasquez Portal

Laura Pollán was posthumously awarded the Democracy Service Medal by the National Endowment for Democracy in House Foreign Affairs Committee Room in the Rayburn building.

Panelists during discussion of "The Legacy of Laura Pollán"

Prior to the award ceremony there was a panel discussion "The Legacy of Laura Pollán:
the Struggle for Democracy and Human Rights in Cuba" that began at 4:00pm and was followed at 5:30pm by the actual award ceremony.

NED's Carl Gershman listening to remarks by Héctor Maceda in Havana

Additionally, there was a live feed from the US Interests Section in Havana with Laura's husband, Héctor Maceda, and daughter, Laura María Labrada Pollán, present as well as the new leader of the Ladies in White, Berta Soler who addressed the gathering.

For us, we feel that we must be the heirs of the example and the experience of the woman who founded, encouraged and gave international recognition to our group’s struggle for political prisoners, human rights, progress and opportunity for all. The awarding of this medal to Laura Pollán is the clear expression of the understanding and solidarity that we have received from the population of the Unites States throughout all these years of peaceful struggle against a Communist dictatorship that continues to batter our country.
This award arrives in a moment when the figure of Laura Pollán is becoming more present and powerful in our movement; at the hour when we have extended our presence to the other provinces of Cuba and have, with each passing day, a greater degree of popular support that the Cuba regime cannot deter.

This award to Laura Pollán is yet another element that obliges us to strengthen ourselves and to work united by our diversity, with respect for all opinions, devoted to our literary encounters, our prayers, our attendance at mass, our public marches, in which we are armed only with our passion for freedom and the flowers that symbolize our peaceful nature.

Thank you, dear friends, for this medal. It honors the personal path of Laura Pollán’s life and reaffirms the commitment of the Damas de Blanco to continue our work for love and freedom.

Laura María Labrada Pollán, Berta Soler and Hector Maceda on a live feed from the USINT in Havana with an American official also seated.

Senator Robert Menendez and Congress persons Ileana Ros Lehtinen, Albio Sires, Howard Berman, and David Rivera attended the award ceremony.

Berta Soler addresses the award ceremony

President Obama sent a message, with a message that Capitol Hill Cubans described as in poor form, but none the less honored Laura. The statement issued by the State Department, a day after her untimely death was excellent.

Past winners of the award include Lech Walesa, Lane Kirkland, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and Vaclav Havel. Also sharing the award with Laura in 2011 is Floribert Chebeya who was murdered in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2010 for criticizing violent repression in that country.

Thomas R. Donahue, the 2006 Democracy Service Award winner was in attendance

Below is an excerpt of the full statement read out by Carl Gershman, the president of the National Endowment for Democracy, while presenting the Democracy Service Award to the representative of the Ladies in White in the United States, Yolanda Huerga:

Carl Gershman presenting the award to Yolanda Huerga, representative of the Ladies in White in the United States

Difficult struggles lie ahead, but the period of darkness is drawing to a close, and the light that is shining in the distance glows with the memory of Laura Pollán. She was a simple woman – a mother, a housewife, a teacher, someone who loved literature. Until her husband Héctor Maseda Guitiérrez was arrested along with 74 others in the Black Spring of 2003, she was not political. But from the moment he was taken away, she had a mission – to free her husband – and to do so, she rallied other women whose loved ones had disappeared to form the Damas de Blanco. Weekly they marched, dressed in white and carrying gladioli, the garments symbolizing the purity of their motives and the flowers their integrity and moral strength. And when they chanted “Libertad,” they did so not just for their husbands and fathers and sons and brothers, but for Cuba itself.

The regime reacted to their peaceful marches with violence and venom. The women were insulted, called traitors and mercenaries, and attacked by shock mobs. But they persisted, and as they did, their reputation and moral authority grew in Cuba and throughout the world.

Then, on September 24, when the women were being shoved and beaten by one of these mobs, Laura was personally attacked by an agent of the State Security. She fell into critical condition just eight days later and died on October 14, a martyr in the cause of freedom.

While people throughout Cuba mourned the death of Laura Pollán, the government responded with “infinite ideological rancor,” in the words of Yoani Sanchez. “Laura is gone,” she continued, “and now all the acts of hatred against her resonate even more grotesquely. Laura is gone and we are left with a country slowly waking up from a very old totalitarianism that doesn’t even know how to say ‘I’m sorry.’”

Yes, Laura is gone, but her memory lives on the hearts of Cubans. Her example of dedication to justice inspires others to fight on. The purity of her motives, the strength of her character, the depth of her integrity, and the force of her fearlessness will light the way forward. Her legacy will help Cubans build a new morality after more than half a century of political bondage, poisonous hatred, and dehumanizing lies. For all she did in her life that ended too soon, and for giving her last full measure of devotion to the cause of “Libertad,” the National Endowment for Democracy is honored to present posthumously to Laura Pollán its Democracy Service Medal.

Following the statement by the National Endowment for Democracy president the representative of the Ladies in White, Yolanda Huerga approached the podium and gave a moving acceptance speech of which an excerpt is translated below (original Spanish is online here) :

Today, exactly two months ago the heart of Laura Pollan, overflowing with love for Cuba, stopped beating, but her death, far from dividing the Ladies in White, strengthened and multiplied them throughout the island

If I were asked to define her character would say, she was like marble, white and strong.

Her husband and mine were colleagues of the same independent news agency, but neither she nor I had matured, then the confrontation with the dictatorship, Cuba's Black Spring united us, and cemented a friendship that was consolidated in the fray, in the fear of reprisal.

Often I cry for Laura. I miss her as a friend and above all her honest sincerity that sometimes surprised and sometimes irritated.

In the intense moments that she had to confront I saw her hardness of alabaster, her unwavering firmness and her serenity and her sense of humor flower when at every minute her life was in danger, mocking the oppressors and making them look ridiculous.

With her leadership the movement of the Ladies in White was no longer a group of women sending letters and making public statements, each one on her own, cohering definitely into a block where everything is decided by consensus and respect each one's opinion.

The Ladies in White, under the leadership of Laura, after succeeding in its first commitment: to see all prisoners released from the Group of 75 and other political prisoners and having reached an international visibility, that we never imagined at the outset, when we were a small group of women beginning our fight against the totalitarian regime, have been redefined as a force for defending human rights and democracy in Cuba.

Nobel Lecture on the successful nonviolent struggle in Liberia

2011-12-11T22:25:00.003-05:00

The Nobel Peace Prize 2011 was awarded jointly to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkol Karman "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work". Below is the Nobel Lecture of Leymah Gbowee that is extremely relevant to ongoing events in Cuba today.

Leymah Gbowee

Nobel Lecture

Nobel Lecture by Leymah Roberta Gbowee, Oslo, 10 December 2011

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Excellencies
Distinguished Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Global Leaders
Women of Liberia, Women of Africa and Women of the world

This is the day the Lord has made and I and my sisters globally will rejoice and be glad in it.

Today marks a very historic day as the Nobel Peace Prize is being awarded to me, Tawakul, and my own President and Mother, Mrs. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in honor of all women globally.

I am humbled and honored to have been selected by members of the committee and I receive the Prize in the name of women who continue to work for peace, equality and justice across the World. A moment of silence for Prof Wangari Maathai, Ms. Dheka Abdi, Ma Wleti Freeman, Ma Asata Kandakai, Ma Fatu Bah, Rebecca Flomo, Ma Klunah Brown, the seven Ivorian Women who lost their lives during the post elections violence and women across the world who lost their lives whilst fighting for peace, social justice and equality.

Early 2003, seven of us women gathered in a makeshift office / conference room to discuss the Liberian civil war and the fast approaching war on the capital Monrovia. Armed with nothing but our conviction and $10 United States dollars, the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace Campaign was born.

Women had become the "toy of war" for over-drugged young militias. Sexual abuse and exploitation spared no woman; we were raped and abused regardless of our age, religious or social status. A common scene daily was a mother watching her young one being forcibly recruited or her daughter being taken away as the wife of another drug emboldened fighter.

We used our pains, broken bodies and scarred emotions to confront the injustices and terror of our nation. We were aware that the end of the war will only come through non–violence, as we had all seen that the use of violence was taking us and our beloved country deeper into the abyss of pains, death, and destruction.

The situation in Liberia in those war years indeed re-affirmed the profound statement of Nobel Laureate, the late Dr. Martin Luther King when he said, "Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem; it merely creates new and more complicated ones".
The women's Mass Action Campaign started in one community and spread to over 50 communities across Liberia.

We worked daily confronting warlords, meeting with dictators and refusing to be silenced in the face of AK 47 and RPGs. We walked when we had no transportation, we fasted when water was unaffordable, we held hands in the face of danger, we spoke truth to power when everyone else was being diplomatic, we stood under the rain and the sun with our children to tell the world the stories of the other side of the conflict. Our educational backgrounds, travel experiences, faiths, and social classes did not matter. We had a common agenda: Peace for Liberia Now.

We succeeded when no one thought we would, we were the conscience of the ones who had lost their consciences in their quest for power and political positions. We represented the soul of the nation. No one would have prepared my sisters and I for today — that our struggle would go down in the history of this world. Rather when confronting warlords we did so because we felt it was our moral duty to stand as mothers and gird our waist, to fight the demons of war in order to protect the lives of our children, their land, and their future.

There are many examples globally of such struggles by women. I believe that the prize this year not only recognizes our struggle in Liberia and Yemen. It is in recognition and honor of the struggles of grass roots women in Egypt, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Tunisia, in Palestine and Israel, and in every troubled corner of the world.
So allow me to pay tribute to some of the giants in women's continued struggle to be free and equal. This prize is a tribute to:

Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), for their courage in the face of arrest and torture, for remaining the voice and face of the suffering people of Zimbabwe;
The Women of Congo, who have endured some of the worst acts of men's inhumanity to women. The World is well aware that the you still endure the horrific sexual violence that is the nature of the endless and senseless war in DRC;
Women of Acholi Land in Uganda who in the face of the so-called Lord's Resistance Army's continued torture and rape remain advocates for peace and justice;
Women of Afghanistan and many other places on earth where in the 21st Century women can be raped and still go to jail or sometimes be subjected to honor killing — this prize is a tribute to your cry for justice, freedom, and equality.

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, women of the world:

This prize could not have come at a better time than this; a time when global and community conversations are about how local community members and unarmed civilians can help turn our upside-down World, right-side up. It has come at a time when
unarmed citizens — men and women, boys and girls — are challenging dictatorships and ushering in democracy and the sovereignty of people;

Yes! It has come at a time when in many societies where women used to be the silent victims and objects of men's powers, women are throwing down the walls of repressive traditions with the invincible power of non-violence. Women are using their broken bodies from hunger, poverty, desperation and destitution to stare down the barrel of the gun. This prize has come at a time when ordinary mothers are no longer begging for peace, but demanding peace, justice, equality and inclusion in political decision-making.

I must be quick to add that this prize is not just in recognition of the triumph of women. It is a triumph of humanity. To recognize and honor women, the other half of humanity, is to achieve universal wholeness and balance. Like the women I met in Congo DRC over a year ago who said "Rape and abuse is the result of larger problem, and that problem is the absence of women in the decision making space". If women were part of decision-making in most societies, there would be less exclusive policies and laws that are blind to abuses women endure.

In conclusion let me again congratulate the Nobel Committee for awarding the Peace Prize to us three women. By this act you affirm that women's rights are truly human rights and that any leader, nation or political group that excludes women from all forms of national and local engagement is setting themselves up for failure.

Let this recognition serve as a renewed compact between women and World leaders, that commitments made to women through various UN and other global institutions' resolutions will be pursued with greater commitment and vigilance;
Let this be a renewed compact that the integrity of a woman's body and the sanctity of women's lives will not be subsumed under male-invented traditions;

To women of Liberia and sisterhood across West Africa who continue to band together to respond to crisis in our sub region; to women in Asia, the Middle East and the World: As we celebrate our achievement through this recognition let us remind ourselves that victory is still afar. We must continue to unite in sisterhood to turn our tears into triumph, our despair into determination and our fear into fortitude. There is no time to rest until our world achieves wholeness and balance, where all men and women are considered equal and free.

And, finally, Liberian women: thank you for making our country proud. Thank you for sitting in the rain and under the sun. This is your prize. This is our prize. The world used to remember Liberia for child soldiers but they now remember our country for the white t-shirt women. Who would have ever thought that Liberian women would have been among faces of women's global victory, but you did it. So thank you!

International Human Rights Day is the Castro Regime's Rights Violations Day in Cuba

2011-12-10T02:06:00.009-05:00

We cannot celebrate Human Rights Day here in Cuba. We can't because they repress us and beat us. Right now there's an act of repudiation in front of the Ladies in White headquarters." - Bertha Soler, Lady in White, The Associated Press, December 9, 2011

International Human Rights day in Cuba, unlike many other parts of the world, is cause for hope not celebration. Hope that one day soon the human rights of Cubans will be recognized and respected. Hope that the international community will speak with one voice and tell the dictatorship in Cuba that Cubans have a right to their rights.

On December 9, 2011 Amnesty International issued an urgent action for Ivonne Malleza Galano arrested on November 30, 2011 while engaged in a nonviolent demonstration demanding that human rights be respected in Cuba. As of today her whereabouts remain unknown.

It wasn't always this way. 63 years ago Cuban diplomats representing a democratic Cuba assisted in the drafting and passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR). Despite the claims of the dictatorship in Havana, the UNDHR is a document profoundly influenced by the Latin American tradition.

Over the past half century the Cuban regime has and continues to work to undermine and make irrelevant the Universal Declaration of Human Rights both inside and outside of Cuba. In places like Syria, Libya, Sri Lanka, Venezuela, Ethiopia, China and Argentina (regardless of ideology) the Castro regime has defended and collaborated with some of the worse human rights violators on the planet. However, in 2011 around the world people stood up for their human rights and many achieved the long sought goal of overthrowing tyranny despite the protestation of the Castro regime and its allies.

Meanwhile, the reality in Cuba is that over the years International Human Rights day in Cuba has been a time of repression and political terror against nonviolent activists. This year is no different over the past nine days at least 241 people have been arrested according to reports that have reached Roberto Guerra of Hablemos Press .

Nonviolent activists in addition to being subjected arbitrary detentions have also suffered brutal beatings leaving one human rights defender bleeding with a dilated kidney and another with a growing cyst in the back of her head. At the same time medical treatment has been at best negligent if not malicious. On October 14, 2011 Laura Pollán died one week after being admitted to a Cuban hospital under unusual circumstances.

Meanwhile many claim that progress is being made because the regime has engaged in some privatizations. Without private property rights to protect the poor and politically marginalized; privatization is a euphemism for the expropriating the poor.

Fireworks set off by a coalition of Cuban exiles from boats anchored 12 miles (19 kilometers) from the Cuban capital, just outside Cuba's territorial waters. (AP Photo/Franklin Reyes)

Fireworks celebrating the International Human Rights Day were set off in international waters by a flotilla of boats led by the Democracy Movement and declared a provocation by the dictatorship. Associated Press journalists who attempted to interview Cubans along the Havana sea wall observing the fireworks were attacked by government organized mob.

The days leading up to International Human Rights Day on December 10 have been filled with human rights violations in Cuba. Unfortunately, it appears that the Castro regime will repeat its tradition of systematically violating human rights on human rights day.

Cuban human rights defenders maintain their steadfast hopes that this will change but know that there is much work yet to be done to see that International Human Rights day is once again cause for celebration and not repression in Cuba.

Freedom flotilla's fireworks seen from Cuba

2011-12-09T20:20:00.006-05:00

Havana full of lights and lacking human rights. - Yoani Sanchez

The fireworks of the Freedom Flotilla as seen from the Havana sea wall and photographed by Orlando Luis Pardo.

Cuban blogger, Yoani Sanchez tweeted: "Despite rain, control and detentions the fireworks of the flotilla are visible. Havana full of lights and lacking human rights.

The El Nuevo Herald tweeted a quote from Ramón Sául Sánchez: "I'm very moved, the objective has been achieved."

Fireworks as seen from El Vedado in Havana, Cuba and photographed by Orlando Luis Pardo.

This isn't the first time the Democracy Movement has approached the Cuban coastline to protest human rights abuses in Cuba. On July 13, 1995 Cuban gunboats crushed the hull of Democracia, the lead boat in the flotilla. Video of what took place embedded below.

Amnesty International: Whereabouts of Cuban human rights activist unknown since Nov. 30

2011-12-09T19:29:00.005-05:00

Amnesty International Urgent Action

Whereabouts of Ivonne Malleza Galano unknown since November 30

URGENT ACTION
CUBAN ACTIVIST IN INCOMMUNICADO DETENTION

The whereabouts of Cuban human rights activist Ivonne Malleza Galano are unknown after police detained her during a peaceful demonstration on 30 November in Cuba's capital, Havana City. Her husband, Ignacio Martínez Montejo, has also been detained after participating in the same protest.

On 30 November, Ivonne Malleza Galano, a member of the Ladies in Support (Damas de Apoyo) to the Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco), and her husband Ignacio Martínez Montejo were arrested by police officers while they were staging a peaceful demonstration against hunger and poverty and holding a banner with the slogan “Stop hunger, misery and poverty in Cuba” in Fraternity Park (Parque de la Fraternidad) in Havana City. Ivonne Malleza Galano was handcuffed and pushed into a police vehicle. Two police officers arrived, tried to confiscate the banner and detained her, along with Ignacio Martínez Montejo. Video footage posted on the internet shows Ivonne Malleza Galano being arrested by the police officers at Fraternity Park while the crowd gathered round her and asked the officers to let her go.

The whereabouts of Ivonne Malleza Galano are unknown and the authorities have not told her relatives whether she is still in police custody, whether she is facing charges, and where she is held. Ignacio Martinez Montejo is still being held at the Ninth Police Station (Novena Estación de la Policía) on Acosta Avenue, Diez de Octubre Municipality, in Havana City. It is not known if he has been charged with any offence.
Since the beginning of the year, the Cuban authorities have detained hundreds of people for short periods, to
prevent them from taking part in peaceful demonstrations.

Please write immediately in Spanish or your own language:
- Calling on the authorities to immediately reveal the whereabouts of Ivonne Malleza Galano, and to ensure that she has immediate access to her family, lawyer and any medical assistance she might require;
- Asking for details of any charges they face to be made public, and calling on the authorities to ensure that any legal proceedings against them conform to international fair trial standards;
- Urging the authorities to remove unlawful restrictions on freedoms of expression, association and assembly in Cuba.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 20 JANUARY 2012 TO:
Head of State and Government
Raúl Castro Ruz
Presidente de la República de Cuba
La Havana, Cuba
Fax: +53 7 83 33 085 (via Foreign Ministry);
+1 212 779 1697 (via Cuban Mission to UN)
Email: cuba@un.int (c/o Cuban Mission to
UN)
Salutation: Su Excelencia / Your
Excellency
Interior Minister
General Abelardo Coloma Ibarra
Ministro del Interior y Prisiones
Ministerio del Interior, Plaza de la Revolución,
La Habana, Cuba
Fax: +537 85 56 621, +1 212 779 1697 (via
Cuban Mission to UN)
Email: correominint@mn.mn.co.cu
Salutation: Su Excelencia / Your
Excellency
And copies to:
Attorney General
Dr Juan Escalona Reguer
Fiscalía General de la República, San Rafael
3, La Habana, Cuba
Salutation: Señor Fiscal General / Dear
Attorney General
Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country. Please insert local diplomatic addresses below:
Name Address 1 Address 2 Address 3 Fax Fax number Email Email address Salutation Salutation
Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Ivonne Malleza Galano is a member of the Ladies in Support (Damas de Apoyo) to the Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco). The Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco) are a group of female relatives of former prisoners of conscience and current political prisoners. They organizes peaceful marches where they distribute flowers and call for the release of those who are still detained. In 2005, the European Parliament awarded The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to the Damas de Blanco.

The Damas de Apoyo emerged as a solidarity group who support and participate in activities organized by the Damas de Blanco. Members of the Damas de Blanco and Damas de Apoyo have repeatedly suffered harassment and intimidation during their
peaceful activities. On 5 August 2011, Ivonne Malleza Galano was detained by police officers and the security of the state trying to prevent her from leaving her home. Two police officers and two state security officers wearing plain clothes grabbed her and
forcibly pushed into a police car. She was released the same day without charges.
Names: Ivonne Malleza Galano, Ignacio Martínez Montejo
Gender: Ivonne Malleza Galano (f) Ignacio Martínez Montejo (m)
UA: 355/11 Index: AMR 25/006/2011 Issue Date: 9 December 2011

Working to protect human rights worldwide

The Egyptian Parliamentary Elections on the Daily Debate

2011-12-08T02:58:00.005-05:00

Rushing back from Port Said following the first round of the 2011 Parliamentary elections in which as a witness to the election in that small but important city now had facts about what had taken place. At the time, was still in the process of formulating an overall opinion of the elections. It was at that moment that Ahmed Samir of the Andalus Institute for Tolerance and anti-Violence Studies called about an invitation to Nile TV's program The Daily Debate that was broadcast live at 10:00 pm.

Below is the video of the broadcast broken up into four parts.

Pt. 1

Pt. 2

Pt. 3

Pt. 4

The optimism of the voters, expressed in the program, was prior to the appearance of huge numbers of discarded ballots days later. Now there is a question of whether or not the discarded ballots were "invalidated" ballots, counted ballots or ballots not counted and raises the question about how a challenge by a candidate demanding a recount would be considered credible.

Ghada Shahbandar, of Egyptian Organization for Human Rights in the video above demonstrates some of the dumped cast ballots and election materials circulating in Cairo. Below is video of a pile of discarded votes.

Three women speak truth to power in Cuba

2011-12-03T21:05:00.005-05:00

Photo by Hablemos Press

On November 30, 2011 in Havana, Cuba three women engaged in a public demonstration with a banner that read: "Enough of the lies and deceit of the Cuban people. End hunger, misery and poverty in Cuba." Ivón Mayesa, Blanca Hernández y Mayra Morejón demonstrated in front of the store “La Isla de Cuba”, before crossing the street and continuing their protest at Havana’s Fraternity Park.

Watch what happened next in the video below recorded by Hablemos Press.

Pieces of the island offers a detailed summary of what went on.

The Castro regime's declaration of cyberwar

2011-12-03T19:41:00.005-05:00

Translation: "Alternative media and social networks. New scenarios of political communication in the digital environment."

The dictatorship in Cuba has a fiber optic cable linked to Venezuela to increase both speed and internet traffic entering and leaving Cuba. Despite some optimistic predictions this has not translated into any change for most Cubans. A few in the Ministry of the Interior and other elements of the totalitarian apparatus do have high speed connections but the rest remain as they were before. Now the Cuban regime is harnessing this high speed connection to up the tempo in its online information war against dissent. The Cuban government has launched its own version of Facebook calling it the "Social Network" that works within the Cuban intranet.

The Cuban dictatorship's Facebook clone has the same name as the 2010 movie about Facebook.

If you think Facebook violates privacy then you'll be horrified by the Cuban government's so-called "Social Network." No doubt the monitoring of members using the service will have an even more sinister application. Users on the island beware.

There is an offensive underway to try to counter independent voices in Cuba and to pursue propaganda campaigns by the dictatorship. Yoani Sanchez on December 2 in a column titled "Dictated Hashtags" reproduced the final declaration of a meeting organized by the Castro regime which is an essence a declaration of cyberwar against dissent.

Final Declaration of the International Workshop “Alternative media and social networks, new scenarios of political communication in the digital realm.” Havana, November 29-30, 2011.

Delegates from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Spain, USA, France, Guatemala, Italy, Mexico, Nicaragua, Palestine, Venezuela, participants in the International Workshop “Alternative media and social networks, new scenarios of political communication in the digital realm,” Havana, November 29-30, 2011, present the following:

Create a directory of contacts with participants of the event to allow us to connect in real time and face attacks against our countries, alert us to different topics and place our messages. This directory will be sent via email. (Ventanapolitica@yahoo.es)
Articulate a collaborative network, starting with the participants in this international workshop, that allow us to socialize content, information, contacts and experiences to work on Internet platforms and tools, on the basis of a defined political strategy. Its expression on the Web will be the www.ventanapolitica.wordpress.com blog.
Work together synergistically on the overall campaign.
Generate actions to enhance the continuous updating and training in the effective use of new technologies in the context of hypermedia, support the creation of multidisciplinary teams and the use of online tools and services such as videoconferencing, online courses, and others.
Create a multidisciplinary group, including technical experts, that allow us to assess able all the proposals we articulate emanating from the network.
Support the reissue of events like the World Bloggers Meeting or this Workshop on Alternative Media and Social Networking.
Promote the creation of quality content, that allow us to overcome our shortcomings in technological development.
Support the incorporation into the network of younger generations and transform them into active progressive forces in these new platforms.
Work together to design communication projects in social networks and other media that include the variety of themes, media and channels, as well as different audiences.
Intensify work and research, in order to design and create our own alternatives (such as platforms, support, and even information security services) that allow us technological independence from the empires of capitalist production.
Express our solidarity and support with the newspaper La Jornada, a publication that has been maligned by the magazine Letras Libres which has accused this prestigious Mexican publication, without arguments or evidence, of being complicit in terrorism.
The theme of the five Cubans unjustly sentenced in the United States must be an axis of permanent struggle. And it will be efficient if we always keep in our minds that each one of us could be in their place. Every Cuban could be one of the 5. Demand the return of the 5 Cuban heroes to their homeland. Send a daily Twitter message in favor of their release. Create and utilize the following hashtags: #FreetheFive #Liberenlos5ya, #LosCinco, #TheFive.
Convert the interventions of Aylin, Rosa Aurora and Olguita into a group of tweets that are socialized at once.
Explore with our respective responsible government bodies responsible the appropriateness of the mechanisms of integration that exist or are now being born in Latin America and the Caribbean to give priority to the issue of Communication and especially to the alternative media and social networks for the dissemination of the new reality to our geographical area.

Scenes and Sounds from Tahrir Square

2011-11-27T06:12:00.005-05:00

The Egyptian Revolution 2.0

Tahrir Square

Before walking into the Square you had to pass through a security checkpoint that searched your bags and checked identification. The organizers of the demonstration have set up internal policing mechanisms in an effort to maintain some level of order in Tahrir Square.

Checkpoint prior to entering Tahrir Square

Walking into the square surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Egyptians engaged in discussion and debate about the future of their country.

Walking into Tahrir Square after passing through the checkpoint fireworks overhead

Banners, posters with images of martyrs, prisoners and slogans abound. At the same time merchants selling food, juice, popcorn, gas masks and more. For example, balloons imitating the “I Love NY” campaign replacing NY with Egypt raised the ire of some of the activists who exclaimed: “People are being killed just a few feet away from these guys selling balloons.” Its all a bit surreal.

International observers inside one of the tents in the center of Tahrir Square listen to an Egyptian activist

Fireworks exploding overhead and families walking through Tahrir Square with their children. There is a festive air in the Square as one approaches the tents at the center.

The nerve center of the Tahrir Square protests were organizers and politicians gather to talk. Food and banana juice are passed around the tent. Introductions are made and international visitors get a briefing on what is going on.

On Friday night between the Parliament building and the Prime Minister's office demonstrators set up their tents and expanded the demonstration. Chanting anti-military slogans and calling for the transfer of military rule to civilian rule.

At any moment shots can ring out and chaos ensues. Usually it happens late at night but on Saturday it happened in the morning, but this time a young demonstrator was run over. Also outside of the Square the situation is also dangerous. During the first phase of the revolution in January, elements in the population seized weapons caches from the police. Now in many parts of Cairo shoot outs can take place at any time over a theft or an argument.

Demonstration and occupation of street between Parliament building and Prime Minister's office

Their is great skepticism among many about the Parliamentary elections beginning on Monday. There have been a lot of last minute changes in electoral rules and procedures and as of Sunday night many questions still remain on how it will be run. At the same time news that supporters of different candidates got into shoot out raises deep concerns about how peaceful the elections will be.

Egypt at a Crossroads

2011-11-24T17:57:00.008-05:00

Downtown Cairo on November 24, 2011

Over the next 96 hours the future of Egyptian democracy may very well be decided in the interplay of the main actors in the ongoing conflict. The military that has ruled Egypt since July 23, 1952 when a group of military officers, calling themselves the "Free Officers Movement" overthrew the unpopular King Farouk I ended the constitutional monarchy and founded a republic where the military dominated the country over the next 59 years. The Islamist movement known as the Muslim Brotherhood that participated in the January 25, 2011 revolution (along with liberal and secular Egyptian activists) is not participating in the present round of protests. The departure of both Hosni Mubarak from power and his son no longer the heir apparent is now being looked as only a first step to ending military rule by many Egyptians who are now taking to the streets once again.

Elections for the Egyptian parliament are supposed to be held on Monday, November 28.

In the days approaching the elections mass demonstrations have taken place across Egypt and the military response has been harsh. The level of violence against the demonstrators has escalated and the evidence of the brutality has generated a backlash that has forced the generals to apologize for the violence. At the same time that clashes have been taking place between the government and opposition activists gathered in Tahrir Square in Cairo as well as in Alexandria, Qena, Mansoura, and Damietta demonstrating that it is nationwide movement.

The Guardian reports that prominent US-Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy was brutally sexually and physically assaulted after being arrested by Egyptian riot police during a 12-hour ordeal inside Cairo's interior ministry. She had bones broken in both wrists necessitating two casts.

Nevertheless outside of the protests life goes on much the same in the rest of Egypt. There are complaints from some merchants that the conflict has not been good for tourism and hurt their business.

Downtown Cairo on November 24, 2011

The decision to hold the first main demonstrations at Tahrir (Liberation) Square has deep roots in post-colonial Egypt that stretch back to 1919 and the uprising that formally achieved Egyptian independence from Great Britain. It was a nonviolent movement that used civil disobedience tactics. Brutal repression by the British backfired and they were forced to recognized the independence of Egypt on February 22, 1922. The square got its name informally after the 1919 uprising and was formally changed to Tahrir Square following the 1952 military coup that did away with the last vestiges of British colonial rule. It appears that Egyptian generals are repeating the same mistakes now in Egypt that the British did in 1919.

Tomorrow, Friday, November 25th Egyptian democratic opposition activists have called for massive demonstrations to demand the end of military rule. Over this weekend it can truly be said that Egypt is at a crossroads and the next few hours could chart what course Egyptian politics will take over the next half century.

Civil disobedience achieved independence for Egypt in 1922. Will it now achieve democracy in Egypt in 2011?

Surviving Senior Khmer Rouge leaders on trial for crimes against humanity

2011-11-23T11:13:00.004-05:00

The Khmer Rouge murdered 1/4 of the entire population of Cambodia in under four years. Now more than 30 years later the 3 most senior remaining leaders of the Khmer Rouge are on trial for crimes against humanity and are offering differing explanations for the estimated 1.7 million deaths between 1975-1979. They are: Nuon Chea, 85; former head of state Khieu Samphan, 80; and former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary, 86 and are all charged with crimes against humanity, genocide, religious persecution, homicide and torture.

The former Head of state of the Khmer Rouge, Khieu Samphan stressed the nationalist credentials of his movement and said that communism gave the best hope for developing Cambodia. Furthermore that the crimes and genocide attributed to him were "a fairy tale."

The trouble is that others, while still trying to justify their actions admit that the wholesale slaughter went on. There is also abundant evidence to back up the fact that a genocide took place in Cambodia. Nuon Chea in the documentary Enemies of the People spoke about it and justified it although expressing some regret: "I have always said I made mistakes. I am regretful and I have remorse. I am sorry for our regime. I am sorry," but then went on to add "that they were safeguarding the revolution and that they 'were enemies of the people.'"

The trial begin in 2009 with the case of Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, and the guilty verdict was delivered on July 26, 2010. Duch, 67, commanded the notorious S-21 prison where as many as 16,000 people were tortured before being sent for execution in the late 1970s. He is the first senior Khmer Rouge figure to face trial, and the only one to acknowledge responsibility for his actions. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison and the sentence was later reduced to 19 years. He is appealing the sentence.

A picture is worth a thousand words...

2011-11-23T06:02:00.010-05:00

Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera arrested together with Donaida Pérez Paseiro for trying to keep a doctor's appointment.

Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera with a cyst product of beatings by Cuban state security.

The above picture was tweeted by Yoani Sanchez on November 22, 2011 at 11:03pm stating that Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez" @AntunezCuba sent photo of his wife Yris, with cyst caused by beatings months ago that is still growing.

Cuban human rights defender Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera has been the victim of numerous brutal beatings by the Cuban dictatorship's state security agents and the pictures above demonstrates a consequence of the attacks. On at least four occasions on this blog the attacks have been reported on: November 4, 2011, September 18, 2011, September 28, 2011, June 20, 2011 and May 26, 2011. In addition the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights issued a precautionary measure:

PM 218/11 − Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, Cuba

On July 6, 2011, the IACHR granted precautionary measures for Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, in Cuba. The request for precautionary measure alleges that Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, reportedly a leader of the Rosa Parks Feminist Movement and a political dissident, has been a victim of physical attacks, acts of harassment, and threats by agents of the State. It alleges specifically that as a result of a new attack she suffered on May 25, 2011, she is suffering from cervical trauma, memory loss, and headaches, and has not been provided with the medical treatment she needs. The Inter-American Commission asked the State of Cuba to adopt any necessary measures to guarantee the life and physical integrity of Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera; to reach agreement with the beneficiary and her representatives on the measures to be adopted; and to inform the Commission about the actions taken to investigate the facts that led to the adoption of precautionary measures.

Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera with a cyst product of beatings by Cuban state security.

To add insult to injury Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez tweeted yesterday night the above picture and that "Today Yris should leave her home for medical attention but a police cordon didn't allow it." Furthermore the brutalization of nonviolent activists by state security agents continues. Dissidents are being beaten up for demonstrating their solidarity with Cubans being evicted from their homes. As predicted, in a country where human rights are non-existent the process of privatization means expropriating the poor in favor of the politically connected. If you protest then they beat you down and arrest you.

An important update: Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera was arrested today as she tried to attend a surgeon's appointment. She was detained together with Donaida Pérez Paseiro. Jorge Garcia Perez Antunez denounced the detention and tweeted news of it at 1:39pm EST stating, "My wife was detained together with Donaida Pérez for trying to attend an appointment with a surgeon." Shortly afterwards Cuban blogger, Yoani Sanchez, posted photos on twitter of the women being arrested.

Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera being detained by Political police in Cuba

Donaida Pérez Paseiro being detained by Political police in Cuba

Both Donaida and Yris while being detained earlier today because Yris tried to attend a medical appointment in order to obtain medical care in Cuba for a beating she suffered at the hands of the political police.

Carlos Eire: Bearing Witness

2011-11-21T20:23:00.011-05:00

“For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.” - Elie Wiesel, Night

Carlos Eire speaking at FIU in the Graham Center on November 21, 2011

Carlos Eire, Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale University, spoke today at 1:00pm at Florida International University in a lecture titled: Exile through the eyes of a Pedro Pan. Several times during the lecture he spoke of the importance of bearing witness and made reference to the quote by Elie Wiesel at the top of this page.

Dr. Eire continued with the theme of bearing witness stating: "When someone is an eyewitness to history and that history involves some great injustice and you don't bear witness to that injustice then you are allowing evil to triumph. Not only at the event but forever." He went on to say, "If you don't set it straight you are an accomplice." You can hear him state this in the above video beginning at 1 minute 42 seconds.

He closed his lecture with a powerful observation and call to action stating: "The best history of all. The history that we each have to tell - our own lives. Especially if that history has been misshapen by others." Video excerpt is embedded below.

The main points of today's lecture were similar to a talk that the professor gave at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio on April 21, 2011 as part of the George Washington Forum on American Ideas, Politics and Institutions. That speech was entitled "Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Wayward Historian." In it he stated that in the process"[t]o bear eyewitness to an injustice you might bring it down." The entire lecture is available online.

Carlos Eire is calling on everyone, but especially victims of injustice, to tell their story. To describe the sliver of truth that they carry within themselves and to share it with others. It is a call to action and it is a call to remembrance.

For example today via twitter learned from Roberto J. Guerra of Hablemos Press that Idania Yanes Contreras, a Central Opposition Coalition leader was arrested in Santa Clara, Cuba on her way to witness an eviction. In recent days she was brutally beaten by the political police. The attack left her with a dilated kidney and bleeding. She is still recovering from that assault by agents of the government. Also learned that 17 other activists were badly beaten and detained for demonstrating their solidarity with this opposition leader. Thanks to Marc Masferrer of Uncommon Sense additional information to that provided by Roberto Guerra on twitter offers both additional information and context. Relaying their story, as well as your own, is a way of bearing witness where you can still save lives by getting the facts out to more people.

Another example from November 18, 2011 is the resignation of former prisoner of conscience and independent journalist Manuel Vazquez Portal from Radio Marti. In his letter of resignation, available on his blog, he speaks truth to power citing the reasons for his departure. The original Spanish text is available here.

One final example that terrifies tyrants. On November 16, 2011 at Miami Dade College, students dressed in white gathered to honor the memory of Ladies in White founder Laura Pollán. They were bearing witness to the nonviolent struggle waged by Cuban women for freedom in Cuba and the ultimate price that one of them had paid.

It is important for as many voices as possible to speak out and document their experience - their truth contributing to the sum total that informs what actually took place. During his lecture, Carlos Eire made reference to an interview on National Public Radio titled "Children of Cuba Remember Their Flight to America" and to read the comments sections to see the efforts by some to distort the historical record. The best way to combat untruth is with truth. The more of it the better. As Mohandas Gandhi once observed, "Truth never damages a cause that is just."