Cuban plea to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump

Please tell Castro to stop ordering the beating of women and harboring of terrorists

Online advertisement in The Rebel Yell

On the eve of the debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, “The Rebel Yell”, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas student newspaper published a full page ad urging them to “prod the Obama Administration to condition any future negotiations and affirmative responses to General Raul Castro’s requests to … the immediate end to beatings and abuses of peaceful dissidents by the regime’s police.”

The ad “calls on all Americans to petition General Raul Castro to stop beating and abusing these women.”

The petition, issued by the Center for a Free Cuba, an independent, nonpartisan organization dedicated to the promotion of human rights in Cuba, says that “despite President Obama’s hopes since December 17, 2014 when he announced [his Cuba outreach], political repression including the beatings resulting in bone fractures and the dragging of the Ladies in White, mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters of political prisoners have increased.”

The ad includes five photographs of Cuban police assaulting the women, including two photographs showing them with broken arms. Among them in the photos is Laura  Pollán, the founder of the “Ladies in White” with a broken arm and her hand showing the “L” sign for liberty. Ms. Pollán died under suspicious circumstances at a Cuban hospital. The autopsy report has yet to be released.

Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America, Mari Carmen Aponte and Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Tom Malinowski carried out diplomatic negotiations last week with Cuban officials. It is not known if the death of peaceful dissidents was discussed.

The petition asks Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump to urge General “Raul Castro [to permit] the International Committee of the Red Cross and Amnesty International to visit Cuba’s political prisoners.”

Further negotiations with Havana should be incumbent “on the return by General Castro of American terrorists, killers of U.S. police officers to face American justice. They are wanted by the FBI and President Obama withdrew Cuba from the State Department list of state sponsors of terrorism. Now out of the list Cuba should act accordingly,” the Center for a Free Cuba says.

“We call on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump to pledge to base U.S. policy toward Cuba on an immediate cessation of these outrages,” Ambassador James Cason, president of the Center for a Free Cuba said. Ambassador Cason a career diplomat served as Ambassador to Paraguay and Chief of Mission in Havana for three years. [Ad follows]


The Center for a Free Cuba based in Washington DC is an independent, nonpartisan organization dedicated to the promotion of human rights in Cuba.

Cuban-Americans at FIU Ask Hillary Clinton to Stop Beatings of Cuban Women by Raul Castro’s Police

"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Over FIU : HILLARY, STOP BEATINGS OF CUBAN WOMEN BY RAUL CASTRO

Cuban-Americans Ask Hillary Clinton to Stop Beatings of Cuban Women by Raul Castro’s Police

Text taken and adapted from Center for a Free Cuba press release

Today, Saturday, July 23, 2016, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic Party candidate for president visited Florida International University (FIU) in Miami, FL in her first joint public address with her vice-presidential candidate Senator Tim Kaine. The Center for a Free Cuba distributed fliers asking Mrs. Clinton to bring an end to the systematic beatings of Cuban mothers, wives, and sisters of political prisoners that continue to take place on the island. 

The Center for a Free Cuba is a non-partisan human rights organization dedicated to the promotion of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in Cuba. The Center’s president is Ambassador James C. Cason, former Chief of the American Mission in Havana. The Center’s Board of Directors and Research Counsel brings together several former American ambassadors, professors, business and community leaders. The Center repeats its call on President Barack Obama to condition any concessions to Raul Castro’s government on stopping the beatings of the Ladies in White, the abuse of political prisoners, and to allow Amnesty International and the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit Cuban jails.

The Ladies in White is a group of peaceful women dissidents who were honored in 2005 by the European Parliament with the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. The founder of the group Laura Pollan died under mysterious circumstances in a Cuban hospital in 2011, at a time when Raul Castro and Barack Obama where Heads of State.

Four years ago today, one of the most prominent opposition leaders, Christian- democrat Oswaldo Paya was murdered on a Cuban highway when Cuban political police forced his car off the road. Together with Paya, human rights activist Harold Cepero was also murdered. The regime has not provided a timeline from the moment that they were forced off the road, when they allegedly were taken to the hospital, when they were given medical attention, what type of attention, and when they died. Oswaldo Paya’s family continues to request the release of the autopsy report.

There are more human rights activists that have been killed by Raul Castro’s regime, and to date, while other issues have been dealt with, the United States has not made these murders a high priority in its relations with Havana.

When the announcement of the re-establishment of an American embassy was announced, Amnesty International noted that if only a few political prisoners were to be released, and the repressive decrees remained in place, then the rapprochement between the two governments would be but a “smokescreen.”

All lives matter—all American lives matter, including the lives of Cuban Americans. Mrs. Clinton has yet to speak about several American terrorists enjoying the hospitality of Raul Castro in Havana after they killed American police officers and fled to Cuba. Mrs. Clinton has said that she supports Mr. Obama’s policy and remains silent to this day about the return to Cuba by President Obama of a Cuban spy who was serving two life sentences in an American prison for his role in planning the murder of three American citizens and one Florida resident by Cuban war planes that obliterated their two single-engine airplanes in international airspace while they were searching for refugees fleeing Cuba.

Mrs. Hillary has said nothing about current Washing speculation that an American spy who worked for the Castros for years while serving at the Defense Intelligence Agency would be freed and returned to Havana. Ms. Ana Belen Montes’ treason resulted in the death of several individuals, friends of the United States.

Today, an aircraft towed a banner over Florida International University with this message: HILLARY, STOP BEATINGS OF CUBAN WOMEN BY RAUL CASTRO

Mrs. Clinton spoke months ago at FIU, but she took no questions. We urged students and faculty at FIU to ask Mrs. Clinton earlier today to call on Raul Castro to stop the beatings of innocent women.

Sadly once again today she did not take questions and her vice-presidential candidate mentioned learning Spanish in Honduras but made no mention of ongoing crises in Cuba or Venezuela.

Remembering Cuban women and their ongoing struggle for freedom

The Cuban transition wears a skirt, its rhythm is marked by so many women who will achieve a more inclusive, maternal, free country :-) - Yoani Sanchez, on twitter March 8, 2012

"They can either kill us, put us in jail or release them. We will never stop marching no matter what happens." - Laura Inés Pollán Toledo, Ladies in White founder (February 13, 1948 – October 14, 2011)

Laura Pollán addressing other Cuban Ladies in White

Today the world seeks to celebrate women's accomplishments around the world on International Women's Day and in the case of Cuba that requires that the Cuban Ladies in White and the Rosa Parks Women's Civil Rights Movement be recognized. Over the past half century of totalitarian rule in Cuba there has been a systematic and brutal denial of all human rights and Cuban women have suffered doubly because the regime claims to have brought equality to women in Cuba. Much like its claims on race relations what that means is that women who speak out about injustices they have suffered are silenced.

These women have confronted it head on and suffered harassment, beatings, threats of sexual violence and in at least the case of Laura Inés Pollán Toledo a mysterious illness and unnecessary death. At the same time these women have achieved notable achievements. They managed to get their loved ones out of prison, because despite all the repression the Ladies in White suffered, they continued to march in the streets of Havana demanding that human rights be respected and their loved ones freed on a regular basis.

Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera

In the interior of Cuba, Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera of the Rosa Parks Women's Civil Rights Movement has been "disappeared" and badly beaten up by State Security agents on more than one occasion. On March 3, 2012 in Placetas, Cuba she was held down by police men and assaulted by one of them, Yunier Monteagudo Reina who pulled down her pants saying that he would “get on top of this black.” Her "crime" is defending human rights.

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. The Coalition of Cuban American Women described what happened next:

On Wednesday, November the 30th, three female human rights defenders, members of the group “Ladies in White’ were dragged, beaten and violently arrested in a crowded public park in Havana for displaying a white sheet that read: “Down with Hunger, Misery, and Poverty”, “Stop lying and deceiving the Cuban people”. Ivón Mayesa, Blanca Hernández (77 years old), and Mayra Morejón cried out Freedom! at the Fraternidad Park, before dozens of citizens. Some of the onlookers who tried to prevent the arrest of the three women were pepper-sprayed by the policemen. Mayesa’s husband, Ignacio Martínez Montejo, was also beaten and arrested and is detained at the Acosta Police Station in Havana. Hernandez and Morejon were released but the whereabouts of Ivon Mayesa are unknown to her family since her arrest.

Standing up and demanding human rights and economic justice in Cuba led to beatings and imprisonment and in at least one case the untimely death of a beloved activist. Let us remember their courage and support their demands for freedom and justice.

Ivon Mayesa