Cuban opposition leaders and former prisoner of conscience taken in violent early morning raid

Home invasion by Castro regime's special brigade early this morning grabs four activists

Yris Pérez Aguilera, Antúnez, Edelvis Granda and Ciro Alexis Casanova taken today

 At 6:48 am today, November 11, 2015 over the twitter account of Jorge Luis García Pérez Antúnez the following troubling news appeared: "At this moment members of the regime's special brigade are breaking down the door of the home of Jorge L Suárez in Camaguey. Four minutes later the objective of the raid was made clear in a second tweet: the assault on the Camaguey activist's home was to arrest Edelvis Granda Pérez, Ciro Alexis Casanova Pérez , Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera and Jorge Luis García Pérez Antúnez.

There was no more news on the whereabouts of this four activists until approximately 6:49pm when Bertha Antúnez (Jorge Luis's sister) now tweeting over his account reported: "At this moment State Security agents are searching and robbing the home of my brother Antunez in Placetas." She continued in another tweet: "My brother was taken into the house handcuffed behind his back, while the thugs inspect everything." Bertha's last tweet on November 11 at 7:42pm reported: "Almost one hour searching and they're not done, have separated so far to take: CDs, my brother's computer and documents." She also declared that the whereabouts of Yris, Edelvis and Ciro are unknown.

The arrests come one day after Jorge Luis García Pérez Antúnez launched the campaign "No, no and no to the dictatorship" to free two activists arrested and subjected to a summary judgement last week and sentenced to six months in prison throwing leaflets and calling on the Cuban populace to "generate a constant resistance to the Castro dictatorship."

The two activists, Geovanys Izaguirre Hernández and Laudelino Rodríguez Mendoza had not paid fines of 2,000 pesos,  which is ten months salary, for anti-government graffiti that appeared in the Palma Soriano municipality.

Opposition activists protest four activists arrests

Damaris Moya Portieles, pictured above in Geneva in 2014, protesting in Cuba today

Damaris Moya Portieles,  announced at 4:40pm that 16 activists of the Central Opposition Coalition had divided into three groups and would take to the street marching to a local police station to protest the arrest of the four activists. The first group was made up of the following five activists: Mildred Aguero Torres, Lester Castillo Rodriguez, Yuriet Pedroso Gonzalez, Derbis Sardiñas Moya and Damaris Moya Portieles. At 5:09pm over twitter their arrival at the police station was reported by Bertha Antúnez.

Repression is on the upswing in Cuba and this latest episode requires a strong response from the international community and activists in the island to protect the lives and freedom of these activists.

Historic meeting between American and Cuban human rights defenders

Rep. John Lewis, Eddy Acevedo,  Jorge Luis García Pérez Antúnez, Yris Pérez Aguilera,

Today Mario Diaz-Balart tweeted the image of American civil rights icon Representative John Lewis seated at a table with Jorge Luis García Pérez Antúnez and  Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera remarking "What a historic moment: Three civil and human rights heroes meeting "  There are images that shock and uplift the imagination. The image above is one of these.

The congressman who half a century ago was being beaten bloody and unjustly jailed while engaged in a nonviolent struggle to end Jim Crow segregation in the Deep South in what became known as the Freedom Rides and later marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965 in the Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights.

Sitting across from him at the same table was Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez" who suffered beatings, and spent 17 years and 38 days in prison for his nonviolent defiance of the communist totalitarian dictatorship in Cuba. In 1990 Jorge Luis stood up in a public plaza and called for reforms and was jailed for oral enemy propaganda and would not be released into freedom until 2007. 

Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, whose brother Mario was also a political prisoner, would go on to found the Rosa Parks Women's Movement inspired by the woman whose act of defiance in 1955 propelled a young Baptist minister, Martin Luther King Jr. to national prominence following the Montgomery bus boycott. Yris met her future husband, Antúnez, while visiting her brother in prison. Over the past 15 years she has suffered numerous detentions, beatings, and death threats for her defense of human rights.

Seeing the three of them together seated at the same table is a powerful image.

The Terrible Precedent Set By Congressman Joe Garcia

The past two years have been turbulent ones for Congressman Joe Garcia and his staff. An absentee ballot scandal in 2012 led his chief of staff, long time friend and confidante Jeff Garcia to a ninety day prison sentence as part of a plea agreement. Other staffers were being investigated by authorities and in order to avoid possible legal entanglements have agreed through their attorneys to extend their statute of limitations.  At the same time officials are reported to be looking into the role the 2010 Joe Garcia congressional campaign played in the placing of a tea party ringer candidate into the race in order to divide up the Republican vote. Despite all of this and Congressman Garcia hiring of a criminal defense attorney, David Markus, he claims to no longer be under investigation but news accounts say different. This is not the Florida 26th Congressional District's first rodeo, but when candidates get desperate in a heated campaign they do things sometimes that harm others and later come back to haunt them.

Joe Garcia did something on October 27, 2014 that no Cuban-American congressperson has ever done by placing a Cuban dissident in a paid political advertisement as an endorsement to advance his own candidacy. The campaign's press release was clear:  "Today, the Joe Garcia for Congress campaign announced that ... Guillermo “El Coco” Fariñas, ... had declared his support for Representative Joe Garcia. Unfortunately, it also turns out to not to be true or as one blogger declared "bogus."  Fariñas in a statement issued today stated:

"I, at no time of the advertisement in question appear asking for a vote for either of the two candidates in particular, therefore, it is clear that I am  not meddling in said elections."

Over twitter "El Coco" stated:

"The statements emitted about Joe García are a personal criteria and not a Political Campaign. The same opinion I would have said about his opponent."

At the same time another dissident, while supporting Fariñas's right to his opinion expressed grave concerns about Joe Garcia as:

"a person who is promoting what the people do not need to be free ... the policy promoted by Joe Garcia lamentably seeks closeness with the regime and not the opposition ... and that is what a great part of the Cuban people and opposition think."

Unlike other members of the Cuban-American congressional delegation Joe Garcia is the only one who has accepted campaign donations from avowed supporters of the Castro dictatorship. The FEC reports show [Francisco Aruca of Marazul] donated $5,000 to Garcia in 2012 and attorney Ira Kurzban, who legally represents Fidel Castro and his interests in the United States gave $3,700 to Garcia. There are others who on camera declare their support and sympathy for Fidel Castro and give thousands to Joe Garcia's campaign such as John Cabañas whose video appears at the top of the page.

Until October 27, 2014 no member of congress had engaged in using a dissident to advance their political campaigns in a paid political advertisement. This sets a terrible precedent that I hope is never repeated. If in the future candidates are dividing dissidents in Cuba over partisan races in the United States and relegating the cause of Cuban freedom to a talking point then historians will look back to the Joe Garcia for Congress and their actions on October 27, 2014 and say this is where it started, and it will be a great shame.

I will be voting for Carlos Curbelo in this election and recommend all fair minded people who are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, etc. to do the same and demonstrate that this course of action is a vote loser and hopefully stop this becoming a trend.

Ira Kurzban, who legally represents the abuser himself, Fidel Castro, and his interests in the United States and gave $3,700 in donations. - See more at: http://www.politicalcortadito.com/2014/07/29/what-hypocrite-joe-garcia-didnt-tell-cuban-dissident-he-met/#sthash.Ne7aUiKI.dpuf

Ira Kurzban, who legally represents the abuser himself, Fidel Castro, and his interests in the United States and gave $3,700 in donations. - See more at: http://www.politicalcortadito.com/2014/07/29/what-hypocrite-joe-garcia-didnt-tell-cuban-dissident-he-met/#sthash.Ne7aUiKI.dpufattorney Ira Kurzban, who legally represents the abuser himself, Fidel Castro, and his interests in the United States and gave $3,700 in donations.

An open letter to General Raul Castro from a Cuban opposition leader (Part 1)

 On August 20, 2014 Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez" made public an open letter to Raul Castro in which he denounced fraudulent reforms, and the murders of Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero in Cuba and declared that national reconciliation necessitates justice, freedom and democracy. In the video below Antúnez read aloud the letter. Below is the first part of Antúnez's letter titled: "No, no and no Raul Castro." Antúnez is a former political prisoner and currently a national opposition leader based in Placetas, Cuba.

OPEN LETTER OF ANTÚNEZ TO GENERAL RAUL CASTRO

No, no, and no Raul Castro 

This, I think is the second or third time I write you, and as always without the slightest thought or desire that you would answer me, for the utter contempt and disgust emanating from your person does not let me do otherwise.

Mr. genocidal dictator,

Today marks 24 years and five months that with only 25 years, five months and 15 days of age I dared to oppose you. Surely your sycophants in the high command of the political police and the party commented on it. Remember dictator, that night you spoke in the city of Santiago de Cuba that appeal to the Fourth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, and as always a speech like so many of his brother that only a few paid him attention. I recall that I was in the square that you all call Revolution, where huge loudspeakers transmitted to people who were voiceless, hungry and above all deaf to your tiresome verbiage. It was a Thursday, March 15, 1990, Stalinist Europe had collapsed, the former Soviet empire was about to disintegrate and here in the Caribbean a senile caste clung to power and refused to implement reforms. For demanding them that late afternoon, your arrogant forces savagely beat me, their instruction corps tortured me and issued orders so that months later your lackey judicial system sanctioned me to imprisonment for the famous crime of "oral enemy propaganda."

Mr. dictator, believe that I should confess to you that at the time of my arrest I still did not know of the long and proven track record of crime and terror established by your brother and you: forced labor, UMAP concentration camps, the sad history of the captive peoples, without taking into account Castro’s interference into the internal affairs of other countries and international conflicts. Perhaps due to this ignorance, I only asked for reforms and shouted that communism was an error and a utopia. Today, after learning more about your system, I ask for your overthrow and catalog communism as an aberration and crime: the social plague of the twentieth century.

That day it was enough that as a Cuban and a youth, I was not free; that as a social entity something was lacking to be able to breathe and walk. I felt that I was forbidden to speak and that I should, either continue to use the mask, "to not look for trouble", or remove it and act and live in accordance with myself even if it meant suffering the most horrible repression. And that is what I did; I challenged you, General (without battles). I did it in spite of your known reputation as a cruel and bloodthirsty man. I did it, General and my only regret is not having had the courage, the opportunity, or perhaps the possibility of doing it long before then.

On the other hand, I also have to confess that it never occurred to me the idea that so much sick fury of hatred and harassment was to be applied against my person. That in the year 1993, three years after the arrest and serving my unjust imprisonment in case # 4 of 1990, the famous hall of crimes against State Security in the dark Santa Clara Provincial People's Court sentenced me, now in case # 5 of that year for alleged acts against your socialist revolution for which I had to spend 17 years and 38 days of uninterrupted political prison that gave me the opportunity to learn in the flesh the use of torture and humiliation as weapons of political repression.

Raul Castro, my case is known to you since it was you and not another who ordered the multiple raids and looting of which I have been a victim in my home during the past few weeks, where in the grossest show of force and impunity you sent your cowardly and opportunistic assault troops partially destroyed my home and stole more than once:  articles, appliances, office supplies, medicines, foods during these known actions that in Cuban slang are known as acts of thievery. After all, everyone does what they are taught.
 

Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez" still needs your help ( An update )

"I refuse to abide by any law or regulation that may co-opt the free exercise of my rights as a citizen of my right as a free person."-  Jorge Luís García Pérez “Antúnez” June 25, 2014

Antúnez and Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera at UM in 2013

Jorge Luís García Pérez “Antúnez” is back home with his wife and fellow activist, Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, and under house arrest awaiting a trial for civic unrest with no set date as of yet. The fact that he is as home is not due to Cuban law. The "law" in Cuba is a code that is observed or ignored based on the arbitrary whims of the dictatorship. 

Antúnez and Yris are back home because of the unexpected attention and support surrounding their arbitrary detention and the regime's inability to break Jorge Luis's spirit using choke holds, beatings, and unknown substance injected into his system. His future will be determined not by the law but the political calculations of the dictatorship. Therefore the two petitions launched last week one in Spanish directed at the Castro regime and another in English directed at international figures to pressure the dictatorship need to be maintained and supported

Antúnez in a conversation with the Cuban Democratic Directorate on July 25, 2014 explained how things stand:

“Right now I am processed with the File # 651 of 2014 of the Criminal Processing and Instruction Unit of Villa Clara. I am being instructed by Joaquín Piedra León. According to the document whose faculties are conferred by Article 27 of the Criminal Procedure Act and the prosecutor who accuses me, or placed this measure is Daylí Carrazana Rodríguez. This is a document duly signed and also stamped” 

Jorge Luís is not backing down. He explained his position very plainly in the same June 25, 2014 conversation:

"I've always said, will say, hold and maintain that I refuse to abide by any law or regulation that may co-opt the free exercise of my rights as a citizen of my right as a free person. That is why I reserve the right when I deem appropriate and strategic to give an answer to this situation. According to them, I have to ask permission to move from Placetas and to travel to places outside of Placetas; they must be places like hospitals. I know this is nothing but a crude maneuver, primarily for closing me off, to suffocate, to handcuff my movements, to stop the work being done by the Resistance Front at this moment.

Since they refuse to be silenced by intimidation and torture their lives remain in danger. The best ways to protect them is to demand accountability on the violence visited against them and to continue to demand that a transparent and international investigations into suspicious deaths like those of Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante.

On this occasion the dictatorship in Havana misjudged the reaction inside and outside of Cuba to the violence and terror visited on this courageous couple.


Meanwhile the door and lock to their home remains smashed up as can be seen in the above video were Yris relates what happened on the morning of June 11, 2014 at around 6:00am when state security agents kicked down their door and took them both away.

Circumstances of the second arrest
 
They had been released on the morning of Friday, June 13, 2014 only to be arrested again on the evening of Sunday June 15, 2014 when they were out walking together and came across a homeless man laying in the middle of a public road who was not receiving attention from the authorities. Protesting that the regime expended resources having them followed at the time that it would ignore someone in distress collapsed in the middle of the street. 

A Call for Help: Cuban dissident Antúnez's week of beatings, torture and arbitrary imprisonment

He needs your solidarity

Beaten, tortured and detained for speaking his mind

In Cuba under the Castro brothers having a difference of opinion with the government can be a matter of life and death. Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez" led the list of over 800 members of the opposition warning against foreign investment that would serve to strengthen the totalitarian dictatorship on the island.The document was initially made public on June 6, 2014. Five days later at 6:00am there was no knock on the door of Antúnez's home but instead it was kicked down by state security. Sadly, it was not the first time that this has happened and as before the objective was political repression on the part of the dictatorship operating with impunity in Cuba.

This afternoon Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, Jorge Luis's wife,  made known over twitter that her husband has been on hunger strike since June 15th in protest of  his unjust and arbitrary detention and the beatings and tortures suffered. She also denounced the continued harassment of state security agents.

Tonight Antúnez's family is asking for your help in a simple and concrete way: signing a petition directed at the Castro regime demanding his immediate and unconditional release. The petition was published tonight by his sister, Bertha Antúnez who was exiled in Miami in February of 2008. In the video below she outlines, in Spanish what has taken place over the past week. Below is a brief summary.

 
Beginning one week ago yesterday on Wednesday, June 11, 2014 at 6:00am state security agents raided the home of opposition activists Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez" and his wife Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera taking them prisoner and ransacking their home. We learned about the detention because Yris managed to send out between 8:49am and 8:56am five tweets announcing their arbitrary detention.

Human rights defenders and pro-democracy activists inside and outside of Cuba mobilized quickly to denounce their arbitrary detention demanding their immediate release while news began to emerge of a wider, nationwide crackdown.

On the morning of Friday June 13, 2014 Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez" and shortly after his wife Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera were released. At the time Yris was too exhausted to make a statement but Antúnez reported the circumstances of their arrest, mistreatment suffered and the "reasons" given by State Security for the arrest:

"They told me that for three things we assaulted the house: First:  Because you are inciting propaganda distribution, Placetas has become a real chalkboard. Second: Because you have become the spokesman here in Cuba in combination with the extreme right of the exile  as a barrier to the normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba. [Third:] We know that you head here in Cuba this new tendency that is causing us problems, that the revolution may have a recovery and for your fault and many recalcitrants in and out of Cuba that has not been achieved. And fourth, we are alerting you that have orders of the Interior Minister to bust you up each time that a poster appears in Placetas and if you do not give up your position." 

Antúnez also described the sinister application of methods that can only be defined as torture when they began to ask him if he had something to say:

It begins and he says: "Something to Declare?" and I said, "Yes, I will not shut up, and I will not leave." The people of the Special Brigade appear and they say "bring him" and I think they are bringing someone as a witness, and a man appears in a white coat who wordlessly jumps me and places me in a choke hold. My hands are in handcuffs behind my back. “And what did you tell me?[ and he responds ] I will not shut up, and I am not leaving! ... When I came to, I was in an open air prison cell exposed to the sun, thrown on the floor, and they had given an injection "for me to be revived." That session they did to me twice. The second time they threw me against the doors of the offices, and they told me: No more magic for you!"

The attempt to terrorize and intimidate using torture to silence the human rights defender did not have the desired effect:

"Now more than ever I stand by my slogan “I will not shut up, and I will not leave." I know that what the tyranny is worried about is that I won't go away, and will continue talking. Today I alert the world that my life is more in danger than ever." 

On Sunday evening, June 15, 2014, the married couple went for a walk to decompress and were again grabbed up by state security. The following day neighbors realized they were missing and activists, who had also been detained, reported hearing the voices of Antúnez and Yris in state security detention centers.

Donaida Paceiro Pérez, a Rosa Parks Movement activist, broke the news to the Cuban Democratic Directorate in a phone call:

"I went to the PNR (Revolutionary National Police) unit in the municipality of Placetas, from where I am speaking to learn about the arrest of this brother and sister and the state security official called "Reinier" tells me that these activists will be processed by justice without say anything more, or give me another reason. When I ask him again, he answered me and repeated that they would be prosecuted and did not know how long they would be there, because he did not know, he had nothing to do with it, he had to wait for orders from the high command, "said Paceiro Pérez.

On Monday afternoon Damaris Moya Portieles along with six other activists took to the street to publicly call for the release of Jorge Luis and Yris they were quickly grabbed up and roughed up by state security and detained. Released later Damaris reported seeing Yris .

On Monday night at 8:36 pm Bertha Antúnez, Jorge Luis's sister, tweeted over Yris's account that she had just been released. The following morning she delivered via telephone worrisome news about the plight of her husband making the following statement to the Cuban Democratic Directorate:

“Mi name is Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, wife of the former political prisoner Jorge Luís García Pérez Antúnez. I am alerting all persons of good will in the world about the situation my husband finds himself in and who was brutally beaten June 17th in cell #16 of the Police Instruction Unit in the city of Santa Clara, Cuba. Those responsible for the physical aggression were Cuban state security officials and members of the Special Brigade, I learned this through a means that I can not reveal, but I can assure that Antúnez was beaten with cruelty. With him a great abuse was committed, there were many guards and they all hit him, with batons, with their hands and kicks while he was on the floor.” 

Earlier today prominent opposition activists from across both the geographic and ideological spectrum on the island issued a declaration of support for "the nonviolent  that states:

"The undersigned call on the Castro regime to immediately release Jorge Luís García Pérez “Antúnez”, Secretary General of the National Resistance Front Orlando Zapata Tamayo. We call on the Cuban exile, human rights organizations and all people of good will in the world to make common cause and support this effort.   

The world is mobilizing on his behalf a statement has been made public signed by NGOs at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland demanding his release, but the reality is that mass support from many different quarters can make a difference. In short, he needs your solidarity.

Human Rights in Cuba - And What Really Happened to Oswaldo Payá

"Cuba's socialist system is an oppressive system."- Regis Iglesias

Dissidents from Cuba and Venezuela testified at a UN panel yesterday about being subjected to arbitrary arrest, torture and other human rights abuses, sparking shouts and accusations from delegates of both governments, who sat in the corner of a packed Geneva hall huddled with allied delegates from Syria, North Korea and other dictatorships. The second half of the event covering Cuba is available with English translation above. Below are some quotes from the speakers on that panel and the intervention by the U.S. Ambassador from the audience. Finally a statement from NGOs on the situation of Jorge Luis García Pérez Antúnez and Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera.

Ángel Francisco Carromero Barrios- Spanish politician, driver of the car in deadly accident of Cuban democracy leader Oswaldo Payá:

"We ask the Council to condemn the arbitrary arrest of Jorge Luis García Pérez."
"The main road has huge holes, but the Cuban government said we were going 160km per hour, which is impossible."
 "The accident took place two years ago and the family hasn't had any access to the autopsy; I'm asking you to have common sense."

Regis Iglesias, Cuban poet, arrested with 74 other dissidents during the notorious 2003 Black Spring crackdown, Amnesty International prisoner of conscience. Exiled to Spain in 2010, he is spokesman for the Christian Liberation Movement:

"Cuba's socialist system is an oppressive system."
"Listen to the victims of oppression; we've been governed for the last 50 years by the same family."

QUOTES FROM U.S. AMBASSADOR KEITH HARPER
  
On Venezuela:
“Venezuela cannot solve its problems by criminalizing dissent.”
“Venezuela infringes upon fundamental freedoms, using violence against protesters and journalists, restricting the media and Internet.”

On Cuba:
“We call for the release of Alan Gross, detained since 2009 for merely facilitating access to the Internet Cuba.”
“We reiterate our call for an independent international investigation into the death of Oswaldo Payá.”
"We have a simple question: What is Cuba afraid of?"
 Tweet: "Cuba [is] trying to stifle dissent at the UN, just as it does at home.

NGO Statement for Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antúnez" and Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, read out at UNHRC press conference in Geneva, 18 June 2014 On June 11, 2014, Cuban authorities arbitrarily detained and assaulted Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antúnez" and Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera. Government agents twice choked Antúnez into unconsciousness, reviving him with injections of an unknown substance. They were released on Friday, June 13, only to be again arbitrarily arrested and detained on Sunday evening, June 15. The two human rights defenders are currently being threatened with a political trial and lengthy prison terms. Reports from other activists indicate that officials have been subjecting Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera to beatings during her ongoing detention. We call upon UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Human Rights High Commissioner Navi Pillay, EU Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to demand that Cuba comply with its obligations under international law, and with its obligations as an elected member of the UN Human Rights Councik, to immediately release both pro-democracy activists, and to cease and desist from any further acts of violence against them. Signatories Directorio Democratico Cubano UN Watch Christian Liberation Movement Iniciativa por Veneuzela Angelo Carromero, Spanish politician Alejandro Suarez Teppa, Venezuela student protest leader Eusebio Costa, Venezuela student protest leader

Two civic opposition leaders re-arrested face prosecution

" I know that what the tyranny is worried about is that I won't go away, and will continue talking. Today I alert the world that my life is more in danger than ever." -  Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antúnez" June 13, 2014

Antúnez and Yris re-arrested by State Security

Resistance activists Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antúnez", National Secretary of the National Resistance Front Orlando Zapata Tamayo and his wife Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, leader of the Rosa Parks Women's Movement have been re-arrested this time on Sunday night while out for a walk, according to the testimony of a neighbor who was an eyewitness to the facts, Donaida Paceiro Pérez, a Rosa Parks Movement activist, broke the news to the Cuban Democratic Directorate in a phone call:

"I went to the PNR (Revolutionary National Police) unit in the municipality of Placetas, from where I am speaking to learn about the arrest of this brother and sister and the state security official called "Reinier" tells me that these activists will be processed by justice without say anything more, or give me another reason. When I ask him again, he answered me and repeated that they would be prosecuted and did not know how long they would be there, because he did not know, he had nothing to do with it, he had to wait for orders from the high command, "said Paceiro Pérez.

 "Antúnez" and his wife Yris had their home raided at 6am last Wednesday, June 11, 2014,  and they were grabbed out of bed, handcuffed and taken to be interrogated. They were released on the morning of Friday, June 13, 2014 and Antúnez made a statement where he denounced being beaten up, choked into unconsciousness on two occasions and "revived" with injections of an unknown substance. He remained defiant and laid down the following challenge to the dictatorship: 

" I know that what the tyranny is worried about is that I won't go away, and will continue talking. Today I alert the world that my life is more in danger than ever because if I was accused of being the instigator of propaganda, then I will continue being the instigator, because information is vital in the fight, and if they demand freedom for the five, I'm within my rights to demand freedom for Ivan (Fernandez Depestre), (Armando)  Sosa Fortuny, freedom for Ciro Alexis Casanova Pérez. If they think that stealing from me in my house will break my spirit, then take me back there, apply it again, knock the air out of me again and murder me because today more than ever I scream " Boitel and Zapata Live” and all that I know how to shout!" 

Human Rights Defender arbitrarily detained and tortured in Cuba

 Handcuffed human rights defender choked unconscious, injected with unknown substance and threatened by State Security agents.

"Antúnez" and Yris Pérez Aguilera arrested June 11, 2014

The news of the release of Jorge Luis Garcia  "Antúnez" and Yris Pérez Aguilera on the morning of June 13, 2014 was widely reported and is a welcome relief to many around the world, but the testimony of the Cuban human rights defender and pro-democracy activist raised new concerns about the mistreatment he and his wife received and the threats made by State Security in the midst of a nationwide crackdown that saw dozens of civil society activists arrested.

Both Jorge Luis Garcia  "Antúnez" and Yris Pérez Aguilera were arrested in the midst of a raid on their home two days earlier at 6:00am on June 11, 2014 in Placetas, Cuba. Jorge Luis described how he experienced the raid on his home and his arbitrary detention:

"The day they raided my home ... I was asleep with my wife, I heard a sound I thought it was the dog or my niece from next door. I feel a rush of people entering my house. I feel everything thrown around. They jump on my bed, handcuffed me, and gagged my mouth. They did the same to my wife.  I saw nothing more."

 The Cuban Democratic Directorate in its press release made known that "among the State Security officers Antúnez and his wife were able to identify are Eric Francis Aquino Yera and Mario Moré Perez." Both agents participated in the cruel treatment against both activists at the State Security headquarters in the city of Santa Clara. These officials told Antúnez that the search and arrest were due to the growing number of anti-government posters appearing in Placetas, and that he had become an obstacle to the "normalization" of relations between the regime of Cuba and the United States. Antúnez also reported that they had orders from the Minister of the Interior "to bust me up". The pro-democracy activist described what happened once they got to headquarters and the explanation from the regime officials of the why for the raid, ransacking and arrests: 

Arriving there they apparently pretended kindness where they took me, after a while they took me out, the same officer who interviewed me the other time started to question me. It was terrible, that the national leadership of the country, of the revolution, was tired of my misdeeds, that this phase I was encouraging, they would not tolerate anymore. They told me that for three things we assaulted the house: First:  Because you are inciting propaganda distribution, Placetas has become a real chalkboard. Second: Because you have become the spokesman here in Cuba in combination with the extreme right of the exile  as a barrier to the normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba. [Third:] We know that you head here in Cuba this new tendency that is causing us problems, that the revolution may have a recovery and for your fault and many recalcitrants in and out of Cuba that has not been achieved. And fourth, we are alerting you that have orders of the Interior Minister to bust you up each time that a poster appears in Placetas and if you do not give up your position. 

Place yourself in their shoes for a moment. You and your wife have been awoken at 6:00am in the midst of a raid on your home by Cuban state security who leap upon you while you are still groggy and half asleep and quickly place your hands behind your back handcuffing them and interrogating you. Antúnez went on to describe what happened next:

It begins and he says: "Something to Declare?" and I said, "Yes, I will not shut up, and I will not leave." The people of the Special Brigade appear and they say "bring him" and I think they are bringing someone as a witness, and a man appears in a white coat who wordlessly jumps me and places me in a choke hold. My hands are in handcuffs behind my back. “And what did you tell me?[ and he responds ] I will not shut up, and I am not leaving! ... When I came to, I was in an open air prison cell exposed to the sun, thrown on the floor, and they had given an injection "for me to be revived." That session they did to me twice. The second time they threw me against the doors of the offices, and they told me: No more magic for you!"

Despite having his home trashed again, being arbitrarily detained for two days, and brutally beaten up and choked into unconsciousness the leader of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Civic Resistance Front former political prisoner Jorge Luis Garcia  "Antúnez" makes known his defiance:   

"Now more than ever I stand by my slogan “I will not shut up, and I will not leave." I know that what the tyranny is worried about is that I won't go away, and will continue talking. Today I alert the world that my life is more in danger than ever because if I was accused of being the instigator of propaganda, then I will continue being the instigator, because information is vital in the fight, and if they demand freedom for the five, I'm within my rights to demand freedom for Ivan (Fernandez Depestre), (Armando)  Sosa Fortuny, freedom for Ciro Alexis Casanova Pérez. If they think that stealing from me in my house will break my spirit, then take me back there, apply it again, knock the air out of me again and murder me because today more than ever I scream " Boitel and Zapata Live” and all that I know how to shout!"  

Global Post reported on June 11, 2014 that "according to the Council of Human Rights Reporters of Cuba, in May Cuban authorities arrested more than 1,000 people for political reasons, and so far this year around 5,000 people have been taken into custody on the Communist-ruled island, double the number of arbitrary arrests made during all of 2013."

The Cuban Democratic Directorate reported that as of June 13, 2014 when they released their press release that Santa Clara activists Luis Enrique Santos Caballero and Yandis Martín Peraza who were detained June 12, 2014 and Manuel José Guerra Cruz, detained in Santa Cruz del Sur.

Below in Spanish is Antúnez's statement shortly after his release from custody on the morning of June 13, 2014.

Opposition leaders remain jailed and independent journalist beaten up

Antúnez and Yris still detained

Taken at 6am from their home yesterday morning.

Tonight  Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, and Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez" continue in regime custody. The Miami Herald's Juan Tamayo reports:

Cuban police and State Security agents were still holding dissidents Jorge Luis García Pérez and his wife Thursday, one day after they raided their home to roust them out of bed and paint over anti-Castro graffiti scrawled on the front walls.
García, known as Antúnez, and his wife, Yris Pérez Aguilera, “were taken from their beds yesterday, without a chance to put on any decent clothes or comb their hair or anything,” said Donaida Pérez, the sister of Yris.
The raiders broke down the door, searched the house and for about the 10th time in the last few years painted over the anti-government graffiti that the couple paint on the front of their home in the town of Placetas, east of Havana, Pérez added.
Among the more outspoken of Cuba’s dissidents and leaders of the National Civic Resistance Front Orlando Zapata Tamayo, García and Pérez have been detained by police dozens of times, although usually for only a few hours.

The pattern of repression yesterday in Cuba led to the question "Is there a nationwide crackdown underway?" The answer a day later is yes. According to UPI "over 40 pro-democracy activists, including four leaders of the movement, were detained by police in Cuba in a crackdown on dissidents." Ed Adamczyk's report was published by UPI on  June 12, 2014 at 2:31 PM and also noted that:

"Although most detainees were released later in the day, the scope of the police action suggested the Cuban government is turning to tougher and more violent means of repression. A journalist, Roberto de Jesus Guerra, claimed a Cuban State Security plainclothes agent attacked him as he walked to the Czech embassy in Havana to use its Internet connection. He later said in an interview, "I am going to the doctor now and later to the police to file a complaint, although they never do anything because they are the ones beating us." Prominent dissidents Jorge Luis García Pérez, known as Antúnez, and his wife, Yris Pérez Aguilera, were taken from their home in Placetas. Also among those detained were Berta Soler, leader of the Ladies in White protest movement, and her husband, Angel Moya, a dissident who previously served eight years in prison."

 Juan Tamayo, in The Miami Herald article offers additional information on the detention of Berta Soler and Angel Moya: 

Berta Soler, leader of the dissident Ladies in White, meanwhile, said she and her husband, former political prisoner Angel Moya, were detained for 15 hours Wednesday in a police station to keep them away from a planned dissident gathering.
She was kept in an office, forced to sit in uncomfortable chairs, while Moya was held in a cell where he could rest in a bunk bed, Soler added. Police detained them as they left their Havana home at 7 a.m. and freed them at around 10 p.m.
Soler said they were detained on their way to a gathering of the Ladies in White and other dissidents who wanted to attend the trial of Fernando Ortiz, the husband of Yanelis Cutiño, a member of the women’s group who has accused him of domestic abuse.
At least 30 other Ladies in White and 15 to 20 male dissidents were detained by police and State Security agents at they approached the courthouse, Soler said.

 Please keep you eye on the fate of these activists.

Is there a nationwide crackdown underway in Cuba?

Human Rights Defenders violently repressed today in Cuba

Activists home raided and ransacked at 6am today. Both arrested

A half-dozen members of the Cuban Patriotic Union (UNPACU), including its leader Jose Daniel Ferrer, were beaten and arrested yesterday on their way to Las Tunas from from Santiago de Cuba.

At 6:00am today (June 11, 2014) in Cuba the home of Cuban democracy activists Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez" and Yris Perez Aguilera was assaulted as they slept and ransacked by state security agents.  They were beaten and taken away. Following their arrest Yris managed to send out some tweets informing what happened:

They have us in police instruction after they raided our house @yriscuba
SOS In deep sleep Political police raided the house @yriscuba
They assaulted our home. @yriscuba

Damaris Moya Portieles, president of the Opposition Movement for a Free Cuba, from Santa Clara informed the Cuban Democratic Directorate that she had "recieved a message of Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera that says that "at six in the morning her home was raided by the National Revolutionary Policy and State Security, where they were arrested and at this moment are in the Police Instruction unit here in the city of Santa Clara." 

At 12:29pm the Cuban Democratic Directorate tweeted that twelve activists of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo (OZT) Front in Camagüey were detained for demanding freedom for Yris and Antunez.

At 10:38am over twitter Roberto Guerra, a Cuban independent journalist and head of the Hablemos Press news service, reported that he had been beaten up and left bloodied by agents of the Castro regime (pictured below).

Independent journalist assaulted by regime agents

Martha Beatriz Roque, former prisoner of conscience, was beaten outside her home by two women who refused to identify themselves then a regime agent approached and explained that she could not leave her house.

Members of The Ladies in White, including its leader Berta Soler, and her husband Angel Moya were arrested today reported Henry Constatin. 

Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez", Yris Perez Aguilera, Berta Soler and Roberto J. Guerra have spoken out about the human rights situation in important venues and you can watch them online. A great way to help them would be to raise their profile by sharing their presentations and allowing others to get to know them.

 A conversation with Jorge Luis Garcia Pérez "Antúnez of Cuba
http://youtu.be/R131CwqsEeg

Yris Perez Aguilera addresses the United Nations Human Rights Council
http://youtu.be/0fHYX-UNTQc

Interview with Berta Soler and the Ladies in White
http://youtu.be/5S9xk9u7YUM

Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez - Oslo Freedom Forum 2013
http://youtu.be/awGkZDOev8E