Showing posts with label Danilo Maldonado. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Danilo Maldonado. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Oslo Freedom Forum 10 Years Rising: A Chorus for Human Rights

#10YearsRising


 Oslo Freedom Forum (May 28 - May 30) is observing ten years of gathering together human rights activists, entrepreneurs, reporters, technologists, policymakers, philanthropists, and artists to focus on human rights challenges and the aim of a freer and more just world.

Over the years Cuban dissidents have been a presence at the Oslo Freedom Forums:.Armando Valladares, Berta Soler, Yoani Sanchez, Rosa María Payá Acevedo, and Danilo Maldonado "El Sexto" have addressed the prestigious gathering since 2009. Unfortunately this year Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia was barred by regime authorities in Cuba from attending the event. Human Rights Foundation, the organizer of the Oslo Freedom Forum, denounced the Castro regime's arbitrary measure.
Nevertheless, Cuba was represented during this gathering with a presentation of the Victims of Communism documentary on Rosa María Payá that also documents the circumstances surrounding the 2012 extrajudicial killings of her had Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero.

At the Oslo Freedom Forum Rosa spoke of how "communist regimes mutilate the human soul. It's hard to imagine the level of repression." She also issued a call for international solidarity: "Societies that live under communism suffer. To get out of that place, we need a collective effort ... we need the support of the international community."


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Sunday, December 31, 2017

Top 12 Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter tweets for 2017

This year was one of change and remembrance. U.S. - Cuba policy changed and 2017 marked in November the 100 year observance of the communist take over in Russia and a century of terror and mass murder caused by communists around the world. The United States pulled out of UNESCO. North Korea was in the headlines because of its nuclear threat. Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter remembered some of the victims of communism in Cuba. Below are the highlights from 2017 according to Twitter Analytics.


January 2017
February 2017
March 2017
April 2017
May 2017
June 2017
July 2017
August 2017
September 2017
October 2017
November 2017
December 2017
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Sunday, February 19, 2017

Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy: Venezuela, Cuba Under U.N. Spotlight as Political Prisoners Gather



 

Venezuela, Cuba Under U.N. Spotlight as Political Prisoners Gather


Just released from Cuban prison 3 weeks ago, artist and dissident Danilo Maldonado (aka El Sexto) will be in Geneva to testify at the U.N.
Activists to address human rights in Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, Turkey, Tibet, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Mauritania, Maldives

GENEVA, Feb. 14, 2017 –  A coalition of 25 non-governmental human rights groups announced today that Cuban dissident and graffiti artist Danilo Maldonado (aka El Sexto) who was just released from prison, and the daughter of the jailed Mayor of Caracas will be in the United Nations to turn an international spotlight on rights abuses by Cuba and Venezuela, at the opening of the 9th annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights & Democracy, which takes place on February 20-21, 2017.

El Sexto, known for his provocative performance art criticizing the Castro regime, was just released from prison after spray painting “He’s Gone” in Havana on the day of Fidel Castro’s death. El Sexto was also imprisoned two years ago for painting the names “Raul” and “Fidel” on two pigs. He recently called out Cuba for sitting on the U.N. Human Rights Council while it oppresses its own people.

Testifying on the dire situation in Venezuela—another country on the U.N. Human Rights Council—will be Antonietta Ledezma, daughter of the imprisoned Mayor of Caracas, Antonio Ledezma.

On the second anniversary of her father’s arrest, Antonietta will call for his release, and for freedom for all Venezuela’s political prisoners. As a UNHRC member, Venezuela is obliged to respect the highest standards of human rights.

Antonietta Ledezma (left), pictured with sister Oriette, will be speaking at the U.N. to mark
two years since her father, Mayor of Caracas Antonio Ledezma, was arrested.
El Sexto and Ledezma will join some of the world’s most courageous champions of human rights: dissidents, activists, victims and relatives of political prisoners from Iran, Russia, Turkey, Tibet and Vietnam, who will be testifying on the human rights situation in their countries. A high-profile North Korean defector, and a young Yazidi woman who wrote a book about being raped by ISIS terrorists, will also speak.

Mohamed Nasheed, the veteran human rights activist who was elected president of the Maldives only to be arrested and jailed as a political prisoner, will be one of the keynote speakers. Amal Clooney, his lawyer, has received death threats for defending Nasheed. See selected presenters below.

The acclaimed annual conference is timed to take place in Geneva days before foreign ministers gather to open the 2017 U.N. Human Rights Council session.

“It’s a focal point for dissidents worldwide,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based UN Watch, which for the ninth year in a row will be organizing the annual event together with a cross-regional coalition of 25 other human rights groups.

The global gathering is acclaimed as a one-stop opportunity to hear from and meet front-line human rights advocates, many of whom have personally suffered imprisonment and torture.

“The speakers’ compelling and vivid testimonies will aim to stir the conscience of the U.N. to address critical human rights situations around the world,” said Neuer.

Subjects on the program this year include discrimination against women, jailing of journalists, prison camps, Internet freedom, religious intolerance, and the persecution of human rights defenders.
Videos of past speaker testimonies are available at www.genevasummit.org.

Admission to this year’s February 21, 2017 summit is free and open to the public, but registration is mandatory. For accreditation, program and schedule information, visit www.genevasummit.org. The conference will also be available via live webcast.


For media inquiries or to request interviews, please email secretariat@genevasummit.org

9th Annual Geneva Summit Agenda

February 2017
21
Tuesday
9:15  Welcome
  • Hillel Neuer    (@HillelNeuer)
    Executive Director of UN Watch
9:25  Opening Address
  • Irwin Cotler    (@IrwinCotler)
    Chair, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights
9:45  The Return of Authoritarianism 
Moderator: Jakub Klepal    
Executive Director, Forum 2000
  • Can Dündar    (@candundaradasi)
    Exiled former editor of Turkey’s Cumhuriyet
  • Zhanna Nemtsova    (@ZhannaNemstova)
    Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom
  • Anastasia Zotova
    Human rights activist, wife of jailed Russian dissident Ildar Dadin
10:45  Presentation of Geneva Summit 2017 Women’s Rights Award
Presenter: Tamara Dancheva
Liberal International
  • Shirin
    Freed Yazidi sex slave of the Islamic State, author of “I Remain a Daughter of the Light”
11:15  Fighting Oppression, Defending Human Rights
Moderator: Jared Genser    (@JaredGenser)
Perseus Strategies
  • Antonietta Ledezma    (@anleca15)
    Human rights activist, daughter of imprisoned Mayor of Caracas Antonio Ledezma
  • Chito Gascon
    Chair, Philippines Human Rights Commission
  • Taghi Rahmani
    Journalist, former Iranian political prisoner, husband of jailed human rights activist Narges Mohammadi
12:15  Do Human Rights Matter?
  • Ambassador Alfred H. Moses
    Chair of UN Watch
———————— 12:30   Networking Lunch ————————
13:00  Side Event – Youth, the Media and Human Rights Activism: Uses and challenges
With: Zhanna Nemtsova
Journalist, founder of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom
14:00  Art for Human Rights
  • El Sexto
    Cuban graffiti artist, dissident, jailed for criticizing Castro, just released from prison four weeks ago
14:20  The Fight for Freedom and Democracy
Moderator: Maria Alejandra Aristeguieta
Coordinator, Iniciativa por Venezuela
  • Nyima Lhamo
    Escaped Tibetan activist, niece of Buddhist leader Tenzin Delek Rinpoche who died in Chinese prison
  • Biram Dah Abeid
    Leader of anti-slavery fight in Mauritania
15:00  Presentation of Geneva Summit 2017 Courage Award
Presenter: Astrid Thors    (@AstridThors)
Former OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, Finnish Minister, MP & MEP
  • Mohamed Nasheed    (@MohamadNasheed)
    Former President of the Maldives, country’s leading human rights activist, former political prisoner
15:30  Voices for the Voiceless
Moderator: Médard Mulangala    (@medardmulanala)
Opposition leader in DRC
  • James Jones    (@jamesjonestv)
    Producer of film “Saudi Arabia Uncovered”
  • North Korean Defector
    (Identity concealed for security purposes)
  • Dang Xuan Dieu
    Vietnamese human rights activist, political prisoner for 6 years, just released last month
———————— 16:30   End of Summit  ————————
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Monday, January 23, 2017

El Sexto freed but there are still many political prisoners in Cuba

"El Sexto free. Others yet to be freed. Let us not forget them." - Jorge Olivera, former Cuban prisoner of conscience, January 21, 2017 over twitter.
One freed but two highlighted before remain jailed and there are others
Danilo Maldonado, also known as El Sexto was held in a Cuban prison without charges from November 26, 2016 until January 21, 2017 when he was suddenly freed. What happened on November 26th? The Cuban totalitarian dictatorship announced that Fidel Castro had died and El Sexto broadcast himself writing "Se fue" [He's gone] over social media. A short time later state security rounded him up and imprisoned him.  The good news is that he is free now, although not allowed to travel outside of Cuba.

However others were badly beaten and/or are still imprisoned for refusing to mourn the death of Fidel Castro or criticizing the legacy of the dead dictator.

Not as lucky as El Sexto was Carlos Alberto González Rodríguez, age 48, who painted "Down with Castro" graffiti in Las Tunas and was sentenced to two years in prison under the charge of "Peligrosidad Social Pre-Delictiva” (Pre-Crime Social Dangerousness).

Eduardo Cardet, national coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement imprisoned since returning to Cuba on November 30, 2016 after criticizing the legacy of Fidel Castro and his regime over mass media. Cardet was initially threatened with a 15 year prison sentence but is now being threatened with three years in prison and has been badly beaten on more than one occasion.

One need not be a political dissident to get into trouble. Darío Pérez Rodríguez, age 49, resident in the Eastern city of Holguín on January 4, 2017 was sentenced by the municipal tribunal to a year in prison for "defaming the martyrs of the Homeland", a crime found in Article 204 of the Penal Code. What did he do? He refused the order issued at his workplace to watch Fidel Castro's funeral on television.

 There are many others who like Julio Alfredo Ferrer Tamayo were arrested before the death of Fidel Castro who remain jailed for their dissent.  Julio Alfredo is a human rights activist, attorney and he has been arbitrarily detained since September 23, 2016 for demanding that authorities respect national legislation and the right to associate of nongovernmental organizations of independent Cuban civil society.

This is but a small piece of the overall human rights situation in Cuba where dissidents have also been the targets of brutal physical attacks and extrajudicial killings. Unfortunately the international community has given the Castro regime a pass.

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Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Amnesty International Urgent Action Update on Danilo Maldonado Machado (‘El Sexto’)

Imprisoned since November 26, 2016 for writing "He's gone" on a wall in Havana

URGENT ACTION
graffiti artist still in maximum-security prison

By Amnesty International

Cuban graffiti artist Danilo Maldonado Machado (‘El Sexto’) continues to be detained in a maximum-security prison, a month and a half after his arrest. He is a prisoner of conscience who must be released immediately and unconditionally.

Danilo Maldonado Machado (also known as ‘El Sexto’) continues to be detained in El Combinado del Este, a maximum-security prison on the outskirts of Havana, the capital, and has now been detained for a month and half.  Amnesty International has not had access to Cuban jails since 1988. According to news reports, El Combinado del Este is a high-security prison, where convicted murderers and political prisoners being punished for their political views are traditionally held.

Danilo Maldonado was arrested at his home in Havana the morning of 26 November 2016, hours after the announcement of Fidel Castro’s death. That same day, Cuba-based newspaper 14 y medio reported that he had graffitied the words “He’s gone” (Se fue) on a wall in Havana.

According to his relatives who last visited him on 10 January 2017, Danilo Maldonado is suffering from frequent asthma attacks due to the damp in the prison. His family had difficulties getting an asthma preventer inhaler through security. When Danilo Maldonado sought medical attention he was given pills which made him feel worse and was forced to sign a document that he was not allowed to read, according to family. On 13 January, Danilo Maldonado called his relatives in a conversation that lasted around a minute, and said a rumour was going around in the prison that “they are going to shoot me” (me van a fusilar). His family say they do not know the source of the rumour, if Danilo Maldonado is having an emotional reaction to being detained, or if he has received a direct threat. According to his relatives, members of his family and friends have been questioned by the police since they filed for his immediate release on 29 December.

Danilo Maldonado’s family understand he has been accused of damage to state property but have not seen official documents specifying these charges. His lawyer filed for his immediate release on 29 December.

Please write immediately in Spanish or your own language:
  • Calling on the authorities to release Danilo Maldonado Machado (‘El Sexto’) immediately and unconditionally, as he is a prisoner of conscience, imprisoned solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression;
  • Calling on them to guarantee the peaceful right to freedom of expression, assembly and association including for dissident, opponent or activist voices and to repeal all legislation which unduly limits these rights;
  • Urging them to ensure that, pending his release, he is provided with any medical care which he may require, in particular if he refrains to eat; that he is not tortured or otherwise ill-treated; and that he is granted regular access to family and lawyers of his choosing.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 27 FEBRUARY 2017 TO:
President of the Republic
Raúl Castro Ruz    
Presidente de la República de Cuba
La Habana, Cuba                                  
Fax: +41 22 758 9431 (Cuba Office in Geneva); +1 212 779 1697 (via Cuban Mission to UN)
Email: cuba@un.int (c/o Cuban Mission to UN)
Salutation: Your Excellency

Attorney General  
Dr. Darío Delgado Cura       
Fiscal General de la República
Fiscalía General de la República Amistad 552, e/Monte y Estrella  
Centro Habana, La Habana, Cuba       
Salutation: Dear Attorney General/ Señor Fiscal 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. This is the third update of UA 273/16. Further information: www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr25/5301/2016/en/
URGENT ACTION
graffiti artist still in maximum-security prison

Additional Information

On 20 October 2015, Danilo Maldonado Machado was released after spending almost 10 months in prison without trial following accusations of “aggravated contempt”. Amnesty International considered him a prisoner of conscience, imprisoned solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression (see: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr25/2710/2015/en/).
Danilo Maldonado Machado was accused of “aggravated contempt” after being arrested on 25 December 2014 for transporting two pigs with the names “Raúl” and “Fidel” painted on them, which he intended to release in an art show in Havana’s Central Park. He was never formally charged nor brought before a court during the almost 10 months he spent in detention.


Name: Danilo Maldonado Machado, also known as ‘El Sexto’ Gender m/f: m


Further information on UA: 273/16 Index: AMR 25/5509/2017 Issue Date: 16 January 2017

PDF formats in English https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr25/5509/2017/en/ and Spanish https://www.amnesty.org/es/documents/amr25/5509/2017/es/
 
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Thursday, January 12, 2017

Human Rights and Rising Repression in Cuba

"The Cuban government wouldn’t have dared to carry out its death threats against my father if the US government and the democratic world had been showing solidarity. If you turn your face, impunity rages". - Rosa María Payá, addressing the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on February 3, 2015
Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet arrested this morning in Havana

 This morning at 10:15am received the following e-mail from Marcell Felipe of the Inspire America Foundation:
Cuban State Security has just taken Dr Oscar  Elías Biscet into custody. Dr Biscet is the a Nobel Prize Candidate and was awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bush. A contingent of 6 men including 4 police operatives and 2 state security agents took Dr Biscet into custody in patrol car 228, about an hour ago just outside of his home, and would not say where he was being taken. His whereabouts are unknown. We are monitoring the situation and will place updates during the day at inspireamerica.org. Thanks for sharing this news it may well save a life.
The publication Diario de Cuba reported an escalation in repression in  Havana, Pinar del Río and Santiago de Cuba today and The Miami Herald reported on the arrest of dissidents and the home of an independent journalist searched by State Security for "nearly four hours." This past Sunday Diario de Cuba reported that more than 50 Ladies in White were detained in Cuba while trying to attend Mass and peacefully march afterwards.

 This is a continuation of the deteriorating human rights situation in Cuba over the past eight years of the Obama Administration. Tragically the Obama Administration's marginalization of dissidents that began in 2009 was deadly. Rosa María Payá, who was forced into exile following her father's extrajudicial killing on July 22, 2012 and death threats directed at her afterwards, addressed the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on February 3, 2015:
 "On 22 July 2012, Cuban State Security detained the car in which my father, Oswaldo Payá, and my friend Harold Cepero, along with two young European politicians, were traveling. All of them survived, but my father disappeared for hours only to reappear dead, in the hospital in which Harold would die without medical attention.  The Cuban government wouldn’t have dared to carry out its death threats against my father if the US government and the democratic world had been showing solidarity. If you turn your face, impunity rages. While you slept, the regime was conceiving their cleansing of the pro-democracy leaders to come. While you sleep, a second generation of dictators is planning with impunity their next crimes."
The claim made by William LeoGrande in Huffington Post on January 9, 2017 that the "human rights situation in Cuba has not improved for dissidents, but it has improved for everyone else" is absurd. First the situation for dissidents has worsened with increasing violence against activists and secondly Cubans, who are not dissidents, have been shot and killed trying to leave Cuba as recently as 2015.  
Diosbel Díaz Bioto and Yuriniesky Martínez Reina both killed trying to leave
The December 17, 2014 announcement of normalized relations was also surrounded by violence and death against Cubans by the Castro regime. Just a day earlier on December 16 the Cuban coast guard rammed and sank a boat with 32 refugees. One of them, Diosbel Díaz Bioto, went missing and is presumed dead. The rest were repatriated and jailed. Less than four months later Yuriniesky Martínez Reina (age 28) was shot in the back and killed by state security chief Miguel Angel Río Seco Rodríguez in the Martí municipality of Matanzas, Cuba on April 9, 2015 for peacefully trying to leave Cuba. A group of young men were building a boat near Menéndez beach to flee the island, when they were spotted trying to leave and were shot at by state security. 

If the human rights situation for everyone else in Cuba was improving there would not be a new exodus of tens of thousands of young Cubans fleeing the island. The claim by Professor LeoGrande that Cubans can start their own businesses does not track with what happened to Saul Berenthal, a Cuban American who had planned to open a factory to manufacture tractors in Cuba. President Obama had highlighted the proposal in 2016. However Mr. Berenthal made a mistake when he regained his Cuban nationality that sunk his deal with the Castro regime.  According to The Miami Herald, Cuban law restricts Cubans living on the island from starting their own companies:
Private sector workers in Cuba, known as cuentapropistas (self-employed), are licensed only to work for themselves and cannot legally establish companies to expand their work beyond a small scale. Larger enterprises are allowed only for the government and foreigners. According to a report on the foreign investment law produced by the National Organization of Cuban Law Firms, “Cuban citizens residing in the country cannot participate as partners in a joint venture.” The report added: “This law is designed to favor 'foreign investors' or Cubans living outside the country.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article125450659.html#storylink=cpy
Professor LeoGrande tried to tie the freedom to own computers and cellphones to the December 2014 policy change, but that is untrue. It is true that the Castro regime had a strategy in the past of restricting internet access using extreme measures including outlawing the ownership of personal computers from 2002 until 2008, but the re-legalization of computer ownership took place in the last year of the Bush Administration. Furthermore, it was the Bush White House that began promoting the shipping of cell phones to the island. Finally, Yoani Sánchez started up her independent blogging anonymously in 2004 and began to sign her posts in 2008 ending her anonymity. Prior to December 2014 the proliferation of independent blogs and digital media sites critical of the Castro regime had already taken place with the launch of 14 y Medio on May 21, 2014. Even the loosening of travel restrictions, that can be rescinded at any moment, was announced in 2012 and began in 2013.

Sirley Ávila León lost her left hand, knees slashed, right arm nearly severed in 2015 attack
The claim that human rights have improved for most Cubans since December 2014 rings hollow on all fronts. The escalation of politically orchestrated violence by state security and the brutality visited on nonviolent dissidents such as Sirley Ávila León, the victim of a brutal machete attack in May of 2015 that left her crippled or the murder of Yunisledy Lopez Rodriguez in May of 2014.  

 Thanks to a rapid mobilization over social media and in the press by the end of the day there was some good news. Marcell Felipe sent me another e-mail at 4:10pm announcing that Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet had been freed:
Doctor Biscet has been released. Thank you to everyone who moved quickly through the appropriate channels and the media who took interest in his story. I spoke with Doctor Biscet a few minutes ago at his home. While in custody he was told to give up his work and that he was getting old and that he was being watched and would go to prison if he continued. Dr Biscet had recently renewed and increased efforts to promote his trademark Emilia Project and many of his colleagues have said 2017 is a definitive year, making the already failing regime all the more concerned; proof of how a man of peace can threaten one of the world's fiercest totalitarian state.
However prisoners of conscience remain behind bars in Cuba today. Danilo Maldonado, an artist has been imprisoned since tagging a wall with the phrase "Se fue" [he left] referring to the death of Fidel Castro on November 26, 2016 and Amnesty International has recognized him as a prisoner of conscience and has an urgent action campaign for his release. Prison officials would not allow the young artist a sweater or a blanket in El Combinado prison despite a cold front. 

Also arrested in the aftermath of Fidel Castro's death was Eduardo Cardet, the spokesperson of the Christian Liberation Movement. Cardet who is also a beloved medical doctor and family man respected in his community. While traveling abroad his wife was detained and warned that upon his return they would lock him up for 15 years in prison for having met the wrong people during his travels. Despite the threat Eduardo Cardet returned home on November 30, 2016 to a brutal beating, incarceration and trumped up charges. Relatives report that Dr. Cardet  has been told that he can go home if he abandons his democratic convictions. More disturbingly prison officials have spread the rumor that Eduardo Cardet is making calls to denounce the criminal rackets of the inmates making him the target of physical assaults from other prisoners. 

 Additionally, Carlos Alberto González Rodríguez, age 48, who painted "Down with Castro" graffiti in Las Tunas was sentenced to two years in prison under the charge of "Peligrosidad Social Pre-Delictiva” (Pre-Crime Social Dangerousness). Likewise a show trial was scheduled to be held yesterday (January 11, 2017) for a family that had been the victim of an act of repudiation for their dissent on November 27, 2016. The accused are Maydolis Leyva Portelles and her children Adairis, Anairis Miranda Leyva, and Fidel Batista Leyva.

 One need not be a political dissident to get into trouble in totalitarian Cuba. Darío Pérez Rodríguez, age 49, resident in the Eastern city of Holguín who on January 4, 2017 was sentenced by the municipal tribunal to a year prison for "defaming the martyrs of the Homeland", a crime found in Article 204 of the Penal Code. What did he do? He refused the order issued at his workplace to watch Fidel Castro's funeral on television.

Cuba remains a totalitarian regime where human rights are systematically violated and repression is on the rise after 58 years of dictatorship.
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Thursday, January 5, 2017

Obama Administration's "New" Course on Cuba is a failure: Some numbers

This is what happens when policy is done by photo op.

President Obama does the wave with Raul Castro at a baseball game in Cuba
President Obama on December 17, 2014 claimed to have charted a "new" course on Cuba but in reality it was a very old and discredited policy applied in Cuba of marginalizing democrats and embracing dictators for perceived gain.

Trade peaked under Bush in 2008 and began a steady decline under Obama
Two years later and on their way out of office the Obama Administration is trying to spin a dismal record and the claims do not match up with the numbers. The White House has repeatedly claimed to have achieved $6 billion in trade with Cuba under the new policy but the actual number according to the U.S. census bureau is $380.5 million dollars in trade in goods with Cuba. (To be fair November and December have yet to be reported.)

In spite of pandering to the dictatorship trade between Cuba and the United States has imploded under the Obama Administration. Peak year of U.S. trade in goods with Cuba was 2008, the last year of the Bush Administration. The two worst years in trade are the ones following the new Cuba policy launch in December of 2014. All of the details are available at the U.S. Census Bureau. The Cuban economy contracted in 2016 and at the same time military control over it has expanded.

Source: Comisión Cubana de Derechos Humanos y Reconciliación Nacional (CCDHRN) 

Meanwhile the human rights situation in Cuba has deteriorated with 2016 finding new prisoners of conscience behind bars and 9,940 politically motivated arbitrary detentions over the course of the year. There is a need to provide some context. In 2009, the first year of the Obama Administration, there were just 869 arbitrary detentions documented. During the eight years of the Obama White House there has been a more than eleven fold increase in politically motivated arbitrary detentions with 2016 being the worse. Religious repression escalated in Cuba in 2016 including the beating of pastors, the confiscation of Churches and some demolished by the dictatorship. President Obama claimed that he would only go to Cuba if there was an improvement in human rights. Despite the decline he went anyway in March of 2016 and helped to legitimize the Castro dictatorship.

Three of the newest prisoners of conscience in Cuba
Furthermore this occurred along with rising violent repression against political dissidents in Cuba. Crippling and disfiguring machete attacks became a new modus operandi beginning in 2013. The shocking case of Sirley Avila Leon in May of 2015 has been well documented even if it is not widely well known.

Victims of state violence in Cuba
 Extrajudicial killings of fleeing Cubans continues but over the past eight years high profile activists have also met untimely deaths that appear to have been carried by Castro's state security service. The same spy agency that Obama's October 2016 Presidential Directive on Cuba orders the CIA to share intelligence with.
 
Some of the Cubans killed by the Castro regime over the past eight years

The Obama Administration's Cuba policy marginalized dissidents and downplayed human rights as  issues in Cuba favoring business opportunities with the Castro regime. The end result of this "new" policy was not surprisingly a worse human rights situation in Cuba and a decline in trade between the two countries.


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Saturday, December 31, 2016

This New Year they remain imprisoned for acts of conscience

Honoring the courageous


Seven years ago on Christmas day in Beijing Municipal No. 1 Intermediate People's Court sentenced Liu Xiaobo, a prominent intellectual and long time activist, to eleven years in prison for "inciting subversion of state power." His "crime"? Organizing a petition drive in China calling for democratic reforms in 2008. 2016 marks the seventh anniversary of his unjust sentencing and the sixth anniversary of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China."

PEN America's case history on this courageous Chinese dissident reveals that he could have stayed in the United States where he was a visiting scholar in the United States in 1989 but returned to China after the start of the Tiananmen uprising:
"Liu Xiaobo is a renowned literary critic, writer, and political activist based in Beijing. He served as president of the Independent Chinese PEN Center from 2003 to 2007 and now serves as an honorary president. He was a professor at Beijing Normal University and was a visiting scholar at several universities outside of China, including the University of Oslo, the University of Hawaii, and Columbia University in New York City.  In the spring of 1989, Liu Xiaobo left his post at Columbia University and returned to Beijing to play a crucial role in the spreading pro-democracy movement..."
Unfortunately, the situation in China has not improved and international solidarity has receded over an economically and militarily ascendent China. Nevertheless in China activists took to the streets and risked their freedom to demand the release of Liu Xiaobo.

Cuba is a long way geographically from China but the trends in the island nation have also been in the wrong direction in terms of regime behavior and the international environment. However Cubans like the Chinese understand this and while many flee the country, some remain and risk everything for their homeland.

Last year was at the King Mango Strut with Cuban dissidents lampooning the Castro regime and the Obama administration. Among the revelers was Danilo Maldonado, also known as "El Sexto" an artist who desires to live in freedom, in Cuba. Under the Castro brothers that is not an easy feat and Danilo has already been declared an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience after a prolonged detention in December of 2014 for trying to carry out a performance art piece mocking the Castro brothers.

This Christmas finds him behind bars for tagging a wall with the phrase "Se fue" [he left] referring to the death of Fidel Castro on November 26, 2016. Beaten up and arrested Danilo has spent Christmas and New Years behind bars.

El Sexto is not alone, also arrested in the aftermath of Fidel Castro's death was Eduardo Cardet, the spokesperson of the Christian Liberation Movement. Cardet who is also a beloved medical doctor and family man respected in his community. While traveling abroad his wife was detained and warned that upon his return they would lock him up for 15 years in prison for having met the wrong people during his travels. Despite the threat Eduardo Cardet returned home to a brutal beating, incarceration and trumped up charges. He has also spent Christmas and New Years imprisoned and separated from his family.

Liu, Danilo and Eduardo could have easily stayed in the United States as political refugees, but made the courageous decision to return to their homeland and continue the struggle for freedom.

Today as we are about to celebrate the New Year and celebrated Christmas let us take a moment to reflect upon these three courageous men and their profound sacrifices for liberty


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Monday, December 19, 2016

Cuba: El Sexto’s International Lawyer Expelled from Cuba After False Detention and Interrogation

"Considering the overt lack of an independent judicial system in Cuba, international public awareness and pressure is the best hope for El Sexto’s release." - Javier El-Hage, chief legal officer of HRF


NEW YORK (December 19, 2016) - Human Rights Foundation (HRF) strongly condemns the arbitrary arrest, harassing interrogations, and forcible deportation of American attorney Kimberley Motley from Havana, Cuba. Motley was in Cuba for three days as the international attorney for political prisoner Danilo “El Sexto” Maldonado, a celebrated Cuban artist imprisoned since Castro’s death more than twenty-one days ago. 
 
Motley was taken by plainclothes security agents as she was trying to hold a press conference outside of the National Capitol Building in Havana. Motley was arrested along with dissident punk rock artist Gorki Águila and democracy activist Luis Alberto Mariño from the civil society group Cuba Decide (an organization devoted to the holding of free elections in Cuba). Motley was arrested without any explanation and interrogated for hours at an unknown police station, after which she was allowed to go to her Havana hotel. At midnight on Friday, police officers appeared at Motley’s hotel, and interrogated her again for around an hour. She was threatened with a new arrest if she failed to board a flight on Saturday morning.
“After being arrested and detained for several hours, I underwent a new round of interrogation at my hotel after midnight. The police knew I was scheduled to depart at 11:45 a.m. on Saturday, and told me I better get on the plane or else I would be imprisoned,” said Kimberley Motley in a phone interview with HRF. “Once at the airport, however, they again took my passport for several hours, forcing me to miss my flight. While they did not allow me to see Danilo, I believe my three days there and the abusive arrest I was the victim of, allowed me to have a fuller understanding as to what dissidents like Gorki or Tito, who volunteered to be my translators, suffer on a regular basis, and to reinforce my will to help imprisoned artists like Danilo. I will continue to represent Danilo internationally, and, since I’m an American citizen and Cuba has normalized relations with my country, I will continue to push for his release and, if necessary, will attempt to visit him at the Combinado del Este prison again soon,” she added.
“When she volunteered to go to Havana, Motley, was fully aware that the judicial system of a totalitarian country where the Code of Ethics for lawyers calls on them to ‘follow the example of Fidel Castro Ruz’ would not be friendly. Nevertheless, Motley courageously risked her freedom to try to see El Sexto and to learn about his case,” said Javier El-Hage, chief legal officer of HRF. “While Motley’s ambitious purpose of having El Sexto freed has not yet been achieved, her arbitrary detention along with prodemocracy activists Gorki and Tito for trying to see El Sexto, helps make his case more widely known, and, as a result, may contribute greatly to his liberation. Considering the overt lack of an independent judicial system in Cuba, international public awareness and pressure is the best hope for El Sexto’s release,” he said.
Kimberley Motley is an international litigator who currently works on commercial, criminal, and human rights issues in every continent except Antarctica including in countries such as Afghanistan, Malaysia, and the U.S. Motley is the founder of Motley Legal Services and the co-founder of Motley Consulting International. In 2009, she became the first and only foreigner to litigate cases in Afghanistan's criminal and commercial courts. In 2015, the award-winning documentary "Motley's Law" premiered at film festivals across the world. On a pro bono basis, Motley collaborates with HRF’s legal team based in New York to provide international legal representation and seek the release prisoners of conscience worldwide.
Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies.
Contact: Contact: (212) 246-8486, advocacy@hrf.org.
TAKE ACTION! Sign a petition for the release of prisoner of conscience Danilo Maldonado Machado and help to expose and denounce the crimes of the Cuban regime:
https://goo.gl/n0qdPw
CONTACT Cuban officials and ask them for the release of Maldonado:
Rodolfo Reyes Rodríguez, Ambassador, Cuban Permanent Mission at the United Nations. Address: 315 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY, 10016. Telephone: (212) 689-7215. Fax: (212) 689 9073. Email: cuba_onu@cubanmission.com.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CubanMissionUN.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CUBAONU.
Please let us know if you took action. CC your communication to: advocacy@hrf.org.
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