Twenty years ago brave Cuban women took the name Ladies in White.

Today four Ladies in White are in prison for demanding freedom for political prisoners and respect for human rights.

Ladies in White Tania Echevarría, Saylí Navarro, Sissi Abascal & Aymara Nieto jailed.

 

May 22, 2023 marks the day twenty years  ago when a group of brave Cuban women took the name the Ladies in White.  

They first came together on March 30, 2003 in the aftermath of a major crackdown that began on March 18, 2003, and with political show trials underway targeting their loved ones. 

Claudia Márquez (L) , Blanca Reyes (center) y Miriam Leiva (Rt), on 4/7/03 (Martí Noticias)

These courageous women carried out marches demanding the freedom of all prisoners of conscience and recognition of international human rights standards. 

Their objective was to see an end to prisoners of conscience in Cuba. 

Recognizing their struggle, the European Parliament awarded the Ladies in White the Sakharov Prize in 2005.

They've paid a high price for this stand. Movement leader Laura Pollán may have paid the highest price.  

Laura Pollán, February 13, 1948 - October 14, 2011

Mary O'Grady in The Wall Street Journal on October 24, 2011 reported that Pollán instead of disbanding sought to expand "the movement across the country and promised to convert it to a human rights organization open to all women. Speaking from the Guanajay prison as her condition was deteriorating, jailed former Cuban counterintelligence officer Ernesto Borges Pérez told the Hablemos Press that making public those objectives likely sealed her fate." Laura Pollán died on October 14, 2011 and was cremated shortly afterwards.

Twenty years later, and the Ladies in White continue to be subjected to brutal repression, and four women of this movement are now jailed in Cuba for calling for the release of political prisoners, and nonviolently defending human rights.

• On April 14, 2022, Ms.Tania Echevarría Menéndez was sentenced to six years in prison for crimes of public disorder and contempt. 
• On April 18, 2022, Ms. Sayli Navarro Alvarez began serving an eight-year sentence for crimes of public disorder, contempt, and assault related to her participation in the July 11 protests.
• Ms. Sissi Abascal Zamora was sentenced to six years in prison for participating in the 11J protests in the town of Carlos Rojas, in the municipality of Jovellanos, in the province of Matanzas. The 23-year-old activist and member of the Party for Democracy Pedro Luis Boitel has ten business days to appeal. Reports are that a bus full of women dressed as civilians arrived where Sissi was peacefully demonstrating with others on July 11, 2021, and proceeded to beat her and others up, and a bottle was broken over Ms. Abascal Zamora's head requiring that she receive stitches.
  
• Mrs. Aymara Nieto Muñoz served four years in prison for her activism in the Ladies in White and when released officials created a new case against her and sentenced her to five years and four months in prison. This was in retaliation for not having agreed with State Security to leave the country with her family.

The current elected leader of the Ladies in White in Cuba is Berta Soler Fernandez.

Artists have celebrated them over the years, and their work endures. Mike Porcel in 2005 composed the song "Damas de Blanco" for a documentary about the Ladies in White.

In 2011, following Laura Pollán's death, Amaury Gutierrez composed the song "Laura", and in 2013 played it for Berta Soler and other Ladies in White at Our Lady of Charity when she visited Miami.

Today, 20 years later, we remember their courageous example, and the need to follow their lead both inside and outside of Cuba. 

Freedom for Tania, Sayli, Sissi, Aymara, and the over 1,000 other prisoners of conscience in Cuba.

Raúl Rivero Castañeda Poet, Journalist, and Dissident 1945 - 2021

"In this country, the real blockade, the one that affects the daily life of the people, is the internal governing system. It is the noose that ensures that Cuba remains immobilized and poor." - Raúl Rivero, 2002

 

Raúl Rivero Castañeda with his wife Blanca Reyes

 

Raúl Rivero Castañeda died today in Miami, Florida. He was 75 years old. Raúl Rivero was a poet, a journalist, and dissident. In 1995 he established the independent news agency CubaPress, and by 2004 was forcibly exiled to Spain. Amnesty International described how in 1997 the secret police told him to leave Cuba.

Raúl Rivero Castañeda was detained  for  several  hours  on  July 28, 1997 and told that the authorities intended to destroy Cuba Press.  He was re-arrested on August, 12, 1997 by State Security and was taken to what appears to have been the same house Olance Nogueras was taken to. He was held there until August 15, 2021 and, although treated respectfully, was repeatedly urged to leave the country."

Raúl Rivero refused to leave, and six years later in 2003 was jailed, and sentenced to 20 years in prison during the Black Cuban Spring. The Chicago Tribune on November 9, 2004 reported on his trial and imprisonment.

The trial of Raúl Rivero Castañeda began on March 20, 2003, and ended 10 days later, when he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The government-appointed defense attorney didn't call any witnesses. A feeble appeal was quashed immediately. Rivero, 59, now sits in a stiflingly small cell with a hole in the floor for a makeshift toilet. Rivero's crime was that he had published, at his own expense, three issues of a small magazine dealing with social issues, culture and art. It was an exceedingly modest effort; the quality of the printing was terrible. By the time the third issue appeared, though, Rivero was in prison. 

Seven years later, what the secret police had suggested the Cuban writer do voluntarily in 1997, was done by force. The offer made in December 2004 was serve a twenty year prison sentence in Cuba or accept forced exile.  Raúl Rivero Castañeda arrived in Spain in December 2004, and he would eventually end up exiled in Miami. 

 

Below is an essay from 2002 that spoke truths that the Castro regime wanted to silence. 

 

Requiescat in pace

Raúl Rivero Castañeda: November 23, 1945 - November 6, 2021

The Chicago Tribune, May 16, 2002

The Internal Blockade in Cuba

May 16, 2002 

 

By Raúl Rivero Castañeda

HAVANA: A man riding the Chinese-made Forever brand bicycle under the Caribbean sun after eating a single slice of bread, washed down with very bad coffee, finds it difficult to ponder America's trade embargo against Cuba. Such a man has lunch on his mind-his and his family's. For him, abstract thought is a luxury that requires time, information, and a reason to reflect on a subject that, at first sight, appears to be from another galaxy. The truth is that ordinary Cubans are more oppressed by a personal embargo, one that has transformed them into blindfolded and muzzled pawns. 

The debate over the American embargo pales in comparison - removed to a far corner of the mind - to the obstructive domestic situation that envelops them. In this country, the real blockade, the one that affects the daily life of the people, is the internal governing system. It is the noose that ensures that Cuba remains immobilized and poor. 

The old standoff between the two nations is beside the point to ordinary people; they desire a closer relationship with the US, where many of their families and friends live. However, no political process has created a smooth path toward such an ending. Thus, the stalemate between the two nations really concerns only Cubans who have time to contemplate lofty political questions. 

These individuals read newspapers fabricated in the offices of the Communist Party; view only two television channels, both cut from the same cloth; and listen to radios that play the same worn-out speeches. Cuba provides no free flow of information and its citizens receive and read only pure propaganda. While the public is suspicious of government proclamations, it has no means to be heard. Hence, its silence appears to sanction the situation. 

In reality, Cubans want to remove the inequalities that exist between the people and their leaders before they deal with the problems between their country and the US. Ordinary citizens want to own a modest business, have access to a free press, organize political parties, re-make society, and liberate prisoners.

The authorities like to paint themselves as the victims of a powerful giant set on smothering a nation and its united people, but such a victim's face cannot be found when you look closely. The nation is not a united citizenry, but rather a mediocre country created through the universal gagging of its people. One can systematically catalog the ways that the authorities mistreat many of its people as terribly as they claim that Cuba's enemies treat her. 

These officials should take the money spent trying to convince other nations about the generous nature of Cuba's public health and education systems and apply it to the needs of Cuba's people. In fact, medical services are becoming more and more precarious and the educational system has not advanced beyond a common system of political indoctrination. Indeed, parents cannot really influence how schools shape their children. Whenever the government does address basic public welfare issues, its efforts merely produce dependent individuals who submit to the will of a self-selected group of leaders who are "elected" from time-to-time by fake elections.  

The leaders' commitment to the sovereignty of the masses thus rings false. Talk about the Cubans' free will is in reality a capricious and criminal act against the people. In recent weeks, thirty-six human rights activists, members of the alternative press, and representatives of the emerging civil rights movement have been imprisoned and may be tried. 

We can all agree that human beings are not duty-bound to live according to one master or philosophy; that individuals must live freely, enjoying the right to a bountiful and joyful existence among family and friends. But in Cuba one lives in the midst of a propaganda machine that infiltrates life on a daily basis; that emphasizes a climate of popular cheerfulness; that portrays the joy of a neutered horse, with its ability to befuddle the innocent, inspire the ignorant, and comfort the frustrated. 

Cubans are in the end consigned to hold fast to rigid and impossible schemes. As a result, hundreds of thousands of young adults are embarked on a future whose path is strewn with risky symbols and immense challenges. Sensing that the door has been slammed shut against their country's future, they work diligently merely for their individual good.

Cuba’s worsening human rights situation: Machete attacks, more restrictive laws, and zero human rights monitoring

“The ultimate obscenity is not caring, not doing something about what you feel, not feeling! Just drawing back and drawing in, becoming narcissistic.”― Rod Serling 
 

Sirley Avila Leon after testifying at the UN Human Rights Council

Cuban human rights defender Sirley Avila Leon, a victim of repression, on September 24, 2018 addressed the UN Human Rights Council on what agents of the Cuban government had done to her.

“On May 24, 2015 living in Cuba I suffered an attack orchestrated by agents of the state, I was attacked with a machete to kill me cutting off my left hand and right shoulder while I covered my head with them, then cut my knees leaving me disabled for life, This was not the first attack I suffered, I was previously attacked several times, physically and verbally by the political police in Cuba: they burned my bed, I suffered arbitrary arrests, death threats, economic damages.  Only for demanding better living conditions for the peasants and their children in a rural area of ​​Las Tunas. My case is not isolated. In Cuba, the state continues to violate the human rights of Cubans, murders, imprisons and banishes those who demand rights and repress their families. To save my life, in 2016 I escaped from Cuba, since then my son, Yoerlis Peña Avila, has been threatened with death and repressed on several occasions. At this moment I fear for his life.”

Sirley had been elected to a local peoples’ power assembly at the municipal level. She thought she could help those who needed help, but the reality of the existing system demonstrated otherwise. 

Sirley Avila Leon following the May 24, 2015 machete attack

Expectations are high that a constitutional “reform” in Cuba and a new president “could help democratize the country,” but instead changes are going in the wrong direction.

The existing constitution in Cuba was not decided in a free and democratic vote nor the “reforms” that are being drafted now. It is taking an existing anti-democratic document and making it even more restrictive. For example, in the old constitution there existed a clause that a citizen initiative required 10,000 signatures for it to be officially recognized, now under the draft of the proposed constitution it raises that requirement to 50,000 signatures. They never thought 10,000 Cubans would sign a document calling for human rights reforms, because of the consequences to the signatory and their families, but with the Varela Project over 30,000 signatures were gathered. In the existing constitution there is a freedom of religion and conscience clause, but in the new draft it is just freedom of religion. Although, in practice, religion in Cuba remains subject to Communist Party control and discrimination.

Raul Castro handed over the office of the presidency to his handpicked successor Miguel Díaz-Canel on April 19, 2018. This was done to give the impression that a transition is underway in Cuba. This is not the case. General Raul Castro remains head of the Cuban Communist Party and in control of the government. General Alberto Rodriguez Lopez-Callejas, Raul's son-in-law, runs the economy. Raul Castro's son, Colonel Alexandro Castro, who negotiated the normalization of relations with the Obama Administration is an intelligence officer with close ties to the secret police. Diaz-Canel, like Osvaldo Dorticos who was president of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, answers to General Raul Castro. The succession does not empower Miguel Díaz-Canel but maintains the Castro dynasty in power.

Blanca Reyes, of the Ladies in White with other activists and members of the IACHR

One of the new laws, Decree 349, signed by President Díaz-Canel in April of 2018 further restricts spaces for artists to exercise their vocation. According to Amnesty International:

“Under the decree, all artists, including collectives, musicians and performers, are prohibited from operating in public or private spaces without prior approval by the Ministry of Culture. Individuals or businesses that hire artists without the authorization can be sanctioned, and artists that work without prior approval can have their materials confiscated or be substantially fined. Under the new decree, the authorities also have the power to immediately suspend a performance and to propose the cancelation of the authorization granted to carry out the artistic activity.”

Despite the government of Cuba being a long time and active member of the UN Human Rights Council it has missed opportunity after opportunity to address key human rights issues constructively and worked with other bad actors to weaken international human rights standards and silence human rights defenders. Thankfully, they do not always succeed.

Over the past two weeks at the UN HumanRights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, Switzerland and the Inter-American Commissionon Human Rights (IACHR) in Boulder, Colorado the human rights situation in Cuba was addressed by Cuban human rights defenders. The testimony and information provided point to human rights worsening in the island nation. 

Sirley Avila Leon addresses the UN Human Rights Council on September 24, 2018

UNHRC

For decades, international human rights monitors have been and continue to be barred from Cuba by the government to evade scrutiny and isolate Cubans. During the adoption of the Universal Periodic Review outcome of Cuba, June 21-25, 2018, Amnesty International raised the issue that Cuba was the only country in the Americas that was closed to them. Later on Pedro Luis Pedroso Cuesta, Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations Office at Geneva replied to Amnesty International’s comment on the refusal to accept monitors in the island, that Cuba did not require such instruments.

In addition to not allowing credible international human rights monitors into the island, the Cuban government has not permitted the existence of an independent national human rights institution in Cuba.

Furthermore, Cuba’s courts remain subordinated to Raul Castro, head of the Cuban Communist Party. This is has had repercussions on the human rights situation in Cuba.

The World Evangelical Alliance informed the UN Human Rights Council that in 2015, two thousand places of worship of a single church union had been threatened with demolition and several places of worship had been destroyed.  Christian Solidarity Worldwide reported that Cuba used a range of measures against religious leaders and human rights defenders.  Arbitrary detention remained a common tactic.  

There are prisoners of conscience in Cuba today. Dr. Eduardo Cardet of the Christian Liberation Movement, jailed since November 30, 2016, under terrible conditions, for his human rights and democracy advocacy for Cubans is one of them.

Tomás Núñez Magdariaga who has been on hunger strike for over 50 days protesting his unjust imprisonment is another. Prisoners of conscience, such as Orlando Zapata Tamayo in 2010 and Wilman Villar Mendoza in 2012, died on hunger strikes.

Extrajudicial killings by the State continue in Cuba, and they are not limited to opposition activists. The case of Mr. Alejandro Pupo Echemendia is a recent and high profile example. Police detained Mr. Pupo Echemendia and took him to a police station in Las Villas Cuba, allegedly for participating in illicit horse races. Eyewitness Abel Santiago Tamayo said Alejandro suffered a panic attack on August 9, 2018, and asked for help. A guard handcuffed Alejandro from behind and began to kick him in the back until he died. Alejandro Pupo Echemendia was 46 years old, a caregiver for the mentally ill in a psychiatric hospital. Government agents placed witnesses and Alejandro's family under duress to retract their statements.

Blanca Reyes, of the Ladies in White, addresses the IACHR

IACHR

One week later, in Boulder Colorado, during the 169^th Period of Sessions of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Cuban independent journalists and human rights defenders presented “Reports on the Criminalization of Social Activists and Journalists in Cuba.”

The representative of the Ladies in White in the United States, Blanca Reyes, denounced the cruelty of the Cuban government and asked for help to free five women from her organization who are presently jailed.

"In Cuba there is a special sign of cruelty of the totalitarian Communist Government against the entire female mass and, in particular, against the Ladies in White," she affirmed. "Women who belong to that organization are imprisoned, they directly suffer the threat of being taken to a cell, they are imposed heavy fines for their public activities and their families, including their children, are also victims of the unpunished conduct of the political police.”

Blanca identified five Ladies in White presently in prison and they are: Martha Sánchez González, Nieves Matamoros, Aimara Nieto Muñoz, Yolanda Santana Ayala and Xiomara de las Mercedes Cruz Miranda.

Unlike at the UNHRC, the Cuban government does not recognize the competence of the IACHR, despite having been invited to return to the Organization of American States in 2009.

Cuban human rights defender impeded from attending UN-CERD Cuba review

Human rights defenders barred from traveling to human rights forums

The Cuban government has denied human rights defenders the right to travel to attend both the UN Human Rights Council and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights over the past couple of months.

MiriamCardet Concepción, the sister of prisoner of conscience Eduardo Cardet, was not permitted by the Cuban government to travel to attend the IACHR hearing in Boulder, Colorado. She was able, with some difficulty, to send her video testimony that was broadcast during the hearing on Monday, October 1, 2018.

The UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (UN-CERD) met in Geneva on August 15, 2018 to examine racism in Cuba. The Cuban government not only claimed that racism was not a problem in Cuba but also told the UN-CERD that human rights defenders in Cuba face no limitations to exercise their activities. Cuban diplomats assured that there had been no reprisals or harassment of activists.

Cuban human rights defenders Juan Antonio Madrazo and Norberto Mesa, both Cubans of African descent, who were to attend the same session were detained arbitrarilyand banned by Cuban government officials from traveling to Geneva to address the question of racism in Cuba.

Two other Cuban human rights defenders were also barred by the Cuban government from traveling to Geneva to speak at the pre-session to Cuba’s third Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in April of 2018.

Pinkwashing

There is one element of the Constitutional reform that has garnered positive international attention and that is an opening to gay marriage. It does not endanger the power monopoly that the regime seeks to preserve. This constitutional initiative by the Cuban government is a textbook example of pinkwashing. It is "the practice of presenting something, particularly a state, as gay-friendly in order to soften or downplay aspects of its reputation considered negative."

The Cuban government’s leadership, who remain in power today, carried out anti-Gay draconian policies in the past, and they are the same ones now advocating for the change on gay marriage in the constitution.

The Cuban government placed Gays and Lesbians in forced labor camps beginning in 1964 in what they called Military Units to Aid Production or UMAPs (Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Producción). These forced labor camps were for those suspected of or found guilty of "improper conduct."  Persons with "effeminate mannerisms": what the Cuban government called "extravagant behavior" were taken to these camps. Twenty years later with the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic in Cuba the regime rounded up all who were HIV positive. Cuba is the only nation in the world that mandated universal HIV testing and enforced isolation of all virus carriers in detention facilities from 1986 to 1994.

This is not a Gay-friendly regime, despite the PR offensive.

Conclusion

Cuban human rights defenders continue to be barred from travel, subjected to harassment, arbitrary detentions and targeted for physical attacks ordered by the secret police. There are changes taking place in Cuba, but they are either cosmetic or make the state more repressive with the goal of perpetuating the dynastic rule of the Castro family.

If Cuba is to once again be free then one must understand the difficult existing reality and the challenges confronting the democratic resistance in the island.

No Right Travel for Cubans: Continues to be up to the arbitrary whim of the Cuban dictatorship

Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."

 Ofelia Acevedo Maura, and Rosa María Payá at the airport

 “The U.S. government closes, and Cuba opens,” Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez told a meeting of pro-Castro Cuban Americans in Washington" on October 28th that "Cuban citizens in the United States would no longer need to have a special review of their Cuban passports to rehabilitate them before traveling to the island." This so-called liberalization, according to Rodriguez, is a side effect of the U.S. government expelling 15 Cuban diplomats and making the procedure more difficult due to staff shortages at the Cuban embassy. 

The Castro regime's propaganda offensive hit a snag. While trying to portray an opening on travel Cuban officials two days earlier did not allow Cuban national Ofelia Acevedo Maura, the widow of slain human rights defender Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, to return to Cuba. They stopped her at the airport in Havana and forced her to leave the country.

On the morning of Wednesday, October 26, 2017, Ofelia Acevedo, a Cuban citizen and widow of Oswaldo Paya, opposition leader, and Sakharov Prize laureate was forced by the Cuban emigration service to board a plane bound for Miami after being informed that she was forbidden to enter her country.

 
Ofelia returned to Havana for the first time after the attack that ended her husband's life in 2012. She was accompanied by her daughter Rosa María Payá, who resides on the island. "I return to visit the tomb of my husband murdered by the regime and to legally demand the report that the Cuban government has arbitrarily denied us for more than five years," said Ofelia Acevedo before leaving for Havana.

Upon landing in Havana, emigration services informed mother and daughter that only Rosa María could enter the country because she was a resident of the island but that the Cuban State prohibited Cuban citizen Ofelia Acevedo from entering. "We said that we would not move until they told us why they were violating my mother's right to return to her own country, but emigration officer Hernández Báez said he did not know the reason. We were there from 10:30 in the morning until four in the afternoon sitting in the emigration room surrounded by State Security agents demanding an explanation until my mother was forced to board a flight to Miami,"explained Rosa María, who stayed in Cuba, to the press. Cuban law deprives any Cuban citizen who has spent more than two consecutive years out of the country of residing in Cuba and of all their citizen rights. Cubans not residing in Cuba require a special authorization in their Cuban passport to enter the island, an authorization that was granted to Ofelia Acevedo by the Cuban consulate in Washington D.C. in August 2017. 

However, "the new measures do not prevent the Cuban government from continuing to decide who enters or leaves the national territory because the obtaining of the passport is still conditioned to the will of the State, the Cuban emigrants continue to be deprived of their residence and citizens' rights in Cuba and the Emigration services at the border continue to be able to deny entry to any Cuban non-resident in Cuba or the exit to any Cuban resident in Cuba according to the will of the State "clarified Rosa María Payá. In the last six months dozens of members of Cuban civil society have been informed at the airport by emigration services that are prohibited from leaving the country. 

This has been going on a lot longer than the past six months.

Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito denied entry to her homeland to see ailing mother

 On June 28, 2016 Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito, who was born in Sancti Spíritus, Cuba and immigrated to the United States in March of 2012, was forced to return at 10:00am that morning after having arrived the day before at 2:00pm at José Martí International Airport. She had traveled to Cuba to see her mother who who was extremely ill and might soon die. 

Ana Margarita shows cuts from broken glass during scuffle at airport (CubaNet)

CubaNet reported that Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito was a former independent journalist who had worked with various independent publications, including CubaNet among them. CubaNet reached her brother, Pablo Perdigón who had gone to pick up his sister only to find as he informed the reporter: "A colonel from the airport told me that she is turned around, that I could not see her. I had to return to Sancti Spiritus, because we rented a car to go get her." Her brother added that the soldier who met with him told him "some glass was broken and she was injured." This was the second time she had tried to travel to Cuba, the first being in March of 2015 when she and her daughter were taken off the plane while it was still in Miami and told that she was not permitted to enter. 

Blanca Reyes: Denied entry to Cuba to visit her ailing dad

Blanca Reyes, the representative of the Ladies in White in Europe, had requested on July 22, 2013 permission to return to her homeland to visit her ailing 93 year old father and on August 13, 2013 was denied by a Cuban consulate official.  Two months later on October 13, 2013 Blanca tweeted:

"My dad fractured his hip, they are going to operate, and Cuban government denies me entrance to see him. He is 93 years old."

In a later tweet she raised an important question:

"Unable to enter your home, Cuba, can someone explain that? I address the people who still support the Cuban Government." 

Two days later on October 15, 2013 over twitter received the sad news that father and daughter were never again to be reunited:

"My father died today in Cuba did not see him for 9 years the Cuban government stopped me. UNTIL WHEN MY GOD?"

Celia Cruz was not allowed to return to Cuba to say goodbye to her mom

 Even Cuban music icon Celia Cruz was not exempt from this treatment. When her mother was dying the Cuban singer was blocked by Fidel Castro from returning to Cuba to say goodbye to her mom or to attend her funeral afterwards in 1962.  

This practice still goes on today with Cubans and Cuban Americans barred arbitrarily from seeing their loved ones by the Castro regime.  The denial of the freedom to travel in these four cases demonstrates that the Castro regime divides families, picking and choosing who can travel in and out of the country. Even cases of extreme hardship when a loved one is dying are not taken into consideration. 

Between 70,000 and 300,000 Cubans are banned from returning to their homeland under arbitrary criteria set up by the dictatorship. This is a systematic human rights violation that has been going on for over half a century and despite the propaganda and spin by the Castro regime continues today as the case of Ofelia Acevedo Maura just demonstrated.

*Portions of this essay were translated from a Facebook entry by CubaDecide.

Castro regime announces Cuban doctors will have to request permission to travel

2013 "Migration Reform" in Cuba: New rules to achieve the same result 
 

Cubans outside the Ecuadorian embassy in Havana, Cuba

News wire services reported today that Cuba's "communist authorities said Tuesday that from December 7 doctors will again be required to ask permission to travel abroad for private reasons." According to these press sources this is news because it runs counter to 2013 "reforms", but back in a 2013 post titled "New rules for the same old game" quoted the January 11, 2013 CNN report on restrictions maintained by the Castro regime:

Specifically, the Labor and Social Security Ministry defined categories of Cubans whose travel would be restricted. They include those who may be "criminally prosecuted, are subject to military service or (are denied) for reasons of defense and national security." "Also on the list are citizens who have obligations with the state or are not authorized under rules designed to preserve the skilled workforce and protect official information," read the Prensa Latina story.

Cubans do not only face restrictions to leave Cuba but also to return and visit their homeland. Between 70,000 and 300,000 Cubans are banned by the Castro regime from returning to their homeland reported The Miami Herald on August 15, 2011 in an article titled Many Cuban expatriates can't go home again.  A friend, born in Cuba, that I went to college with was not able to travel to Cuba when her grandmother died. It wasn't the US embargo that stopped her but the Castro regime that denied her request. No reason given. Many Cubans are afraid to speak freely about the reasons they left the island out of a fear that if they give a political motive they will never be allowed to return. A high profile example of a Cuban woman not allowed to return to Cuba to visit her dying father played out over social media in the latter half of 2013 and was reproduced, in part, in PanAm
Post's The Canal: 

Blanca Reyes had requested on July 22, 2013, permission to return to her homeland to visit her ailing 93-year-old father. However, on August 13, 2013, a Cuban consulate official denied her that opportunity. Two months later on October 13, 2013 Blanca tweeted:

My dad fractured his hip, they are going to operate, and Cuban government denies me entrance to see him. He is 93 years old.

In a later tweet she raised an important question:

Unable to enter your home, Cuba, can someone explain that? I address the people who still support the Cuban Government.

Two days later on October 15, 2013, Blanca tweeted the sad news that the father and daughter would never again to be reunited:

My father died today in Cuba did not see him for 9 years the Cuban government stopped me. UNTIL WHEN MY GOD?

Despite the regime’s propaganda offensive and media hype, the right to travel freely remains non-existent in Cuba. In this particular case, they denied a daughter the opportunity to say goodbye to her dad.

This so-called migration "reform" is an example of what martyred dissident leader Oswaldo Payá referred to as "fraudulent change." Giving the illusion of an opening while the Stalinist character of the dictatorship remained intact benefited the regime from decreased international scrutiny and increased its legitimacy abroad. Sadly, the reality has been very different. Cubans are no freer to travel now than before January 1, 2013,  it remains up to the whims of the dictatorship. 

Tony Diaz Sanchez, former prisoner of conscience and Christian Liberation Movement Leader on December 1, 2015 over Facebook summed up the current news coverage best: "The 201[2] 'reform' of the immigration law made clear that the 'state' could prevent the departure of any person for the 'public interest'.  If this already exists as law, then this with the doctors is nothing new, just smoke and mirrors."

Back in October of 2012 when the regime announced the new regulations I provided the following analysis:

The Castro dictatorship in 2012 is once again demonstrating that it is a master of distraction highlighting a new migration law with new rules that achieve the same result: travel in and out of Cuba is to be administered by the Ministry of the Interior and professionals such as medical doctors do not have freedom to travel. The infamous white card, an exit visa, that Cubans need to exit their own country will according to the regime announcement be replaced in 2013 with new more stringent requirements for the passport.

What do the authorities hope to accomplish with this so-called reform that the regime says will come into effect on January 1, 2013? First, one of the long term objectives of the dictatorship is eliminating the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act which grants Cuban refugees special immigration privileges for fleeing a totalitarian dictatorship where the freedom of travel is nonexistent. Floating the threat of a slow motion Mariel is meant to pressure U.S. lawmakers into eliminating a law that demonstrates that the Castro regime is different from every other country in the hemisphere.  

All I can say now is, told you so. The human rights situation continues to deteriorate in Cuba as violence and repression escalates and now the United States faces the latest Cuban manufactured migrations crisis thanks to the inept foreign policy of the Obama administration. Cuba will not change for the better until the system created by the Castro brothers is replaced with a democratic system in which the rule of law is respected. Tourists will not achieve this change and the record in other totalitarian regimes indicates that if anything they will provide hard currency to the most repressive elements in Cuba that run the tourism industry.

Fake change in Cuba: totalitarian regime maintains travel controls

"The government of the military regime has denied Cubans the universal right to freedom of travel for more than half a century and continues denying this right without any transparent prospects of change. With the greatest cruelty, it has torn millions of Cuban families apart and it still continues doing it." - Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas Enough of deceptions, FREEDOM NOW, April 19, 2012

The infamous white card, an exit visa, that Cubans needed to exit their own country was replaced in 2013 with new more stringent requirements for the passport. Travel in and out of Cuba is administered by the Ministry of the Interior and professionals such as medical doctors do not have freedom to travel. 

Travel into and out of Cuba remains under totalitarian control and dissenters continue to be punished. The case of Antonio Rodiles and his wife Ailer González who are not being allowed to travel out of the island is a case in point. They have not been charged with anything nor are they on parole, but the dictatorship has decided for the time being that they cannot travel. In the past the Cuban dictatorship used the white card now they use the passport as the control.

Between 70,000 and 300,000 Cubans are banned by the Castro regime from returning to their homeland reported The Miami Herald on August 15, 2011 in an article titled Many Cuban expatriates can't go home again.  A friend, born in Cuba, that I went to college with was not able to travel to Cuba when her grandmother died. It wasn't the US embargo that stopped her but the Castro regime that denied her request. No reason given.

This migration "reform"is an example of what the late dissident leader Oswaldo Payá referred to as "fraudulent change." Giving the image of an opening while the Stalinist character of the dictatorship remains intact thus benefiting it from the image makeover in order to provide decreased international scrutiny and increased legitimacy. Sadly, the reality is very different. Cubans are no freer to travel now than before January 1, 2013  it remains up to the whims of the dictatorship. 

 
Oswaldo knew this first hand having been "permitted" to travel out of Cuba in December 2002 to attend the Sakharov Prize ceremony in Strasbourg, France. Days prior to being granted the white card to travel, on December 13, 2002 his home was trashed and death threats were left everywhere. Oswaldo Payá was able to return home to his family in February of 2003. Dissidents in smaller numbers when politically expedient for the regime were traveling in and out of Cuba long before 2013.

Despite the so-called 2013 travel reform Cubans living abroad were still banned from returning home because they had nonviolently dissented from the official line. One high profile example was that of Blanca Reyes. In August of 2013, Blanca Reyes made public that she was denied the right to enter her country, Cuba, to visit her 93-year old dying father. On October 15, 2013 over twitter Blanca reported that father and daughter were never again to be reunited in life:"My father died today in Cuba. I did not see him for nine years, the Cuban government stopped me. HOW MUCH LONGER MY GOD?" 

One concrete change is that the cost for a Cuban national to travel out of Cuba has increased in cost from 300 CUCs ($300) which included in the past the passport, white card and associated paperwork to 500 CUCs ($500) now for just the passport when the average Cuban earns 20 CUCs working for an entire month. This means that under this so-called reform for a Cuban to obtain a passport needs to spend twenty five months salary.

Cuba remains the only country in the Western Hemisphere in which nationals do not have the right to enter and exit their own country. It is for this reason that the Cuban Adjustment Act (CAA) remains needed. The dictatorship in Cuba remains a totalitarian regime. Stories in the media have misrepresented it as some sort of "perk" but that is not the case. However since one of the long term goals of the Castro dictatorship has been to get rid of CAA which sets Cuba apart from the rest of countries in the hemisphere then this type of media campaigns should not be a surprise.

At the same time one cannot ignore that the dictatorship in Cuba is also a state sponsor of terrorism and that a small number of individuals who have engaged in human rights violations and atrocities against Cubans have been rewarded by the Cuban regime with residency in the United States. At the same time the president of the United States has said that those engaged in serious human rights violations should be barred from entering the United States and on August 4, 2011 issued a presidential proclamation to that effect that states under Section 1:

The entry into the United States, as immigrants or non-immigrants, of the following persons is hereby suspended:

(a) Any alien who planned, ordered, assisted, aided and abetted, committed or otherwise participated in, including through command responsibility, widespread or systematic violence against any civilian population based in whole or in part on race; color; descent; sex; disability; membership in an indigenous group; language; religion; political opinion; national origin; ethnicity; membership in a particular social group; birth; or sexual orientation or gender identity, or who attempted or conspired to do so.

(b) Any alien who planned, ordered, assisted, aided and abetted, committed or otherwise participated in, including through command responsibility, war crimes, crimes against humanity or other serious violations of human rights, or who attempted or conspired to do so.

Instead of replacing the Cuban Adjustment Act another approach, that underscores Obama's above stated presidential proclamation, would be to push for legislation that bars Cuban human rights abusers from entering the United States. The bill would place visa bans and asset freezes on Cuban officials involved in human rights abuses and could be patterned after the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act that was passed in 2012 that targets Russia. In addition to Cuba the new bill could also include Belarus, China, North Korea, Venezuela, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe and be an opportunity for unity between freedom movements.

Maintaining the Cuban Adjustment act as it is while applying the presidential proclamation and pushing for the Magnitsky Act to be expanded to include Cuba to target those who have committed serious human rights violations in Cuba seems an approach that both takes into account the systematic violation of human rights suffered by Cubans and the need to hold Cuban human rights violators accountable. Doing otherwise would be a surrender of fundamental democratic values.