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| "Antúnez" addressing the Assembly of the Resistance |
Showing posts with label Jorge Luis García Pérez. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jorge Luis García Pérez. Show all posts
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez" addresses the Assembly of the Resistance
Friday, August 9, 2013
Cuban dissident Antúnez speaks to The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald editorial boards
Cuban dissident Antúnez says women, blacks, provincial residents joining movement
by Juan O. TamayoEl Nuevo Herald
Cuba’s dissident movement has been growing with the increased involvement of women, blacks and provincial residents, the opposition activist known as Antúnez said Wednesday during his first public appearance in Miami.
Jorge Luís García Pérez also said that although President Barack Obama’s decision to lift almost all restrictions on Cuban-American travel and remittances to the island was well-intentioned, his administration also “broke a tradition of solidarity” with dissidents.
Cubans separated by decades of animosity have been able to see each other again, but “that’s not helped at all” to improve political conditions on the island, García said in a lengthy interview with El Nuevo Herald and The Miami Herald.
The 48-year-old García, regarded as one of Cuba’s more combative dissidents and best known as Antúnez, spent 17 years in prison after shouting anti-government slogans during a speech by then-Defense Minister Raúl Castro in 1990.
He landed in Miami on Sunday on his first-ever trip abroad even though he has had a U.S. visitors visa for the past six or seven years. The Cuban government previously told him that he could leave the island only if he agreed to stay out, he said.
García was the latest of the many dissidents allowed to travel abroad after Havana eased its migration restrictions in January. They include Guillermo Fariñas and Antonio Rodiles, blogger Yoani Sánchez and Ladies in White leader Berta Soler.
While Cuba’s dissident groups were traditionally led by older intellectuals, García said, they have been growing in recent years with the addition of blacks like himself, women like the Ladies in White and people who live outside of Havana.
The most aggressive resistance is currently in the provinces, he added, because people there know and trust each other while residents of Havana barely know their next-door neighbors. García lives in Placetas, a municipality of 50,000 people in central Cuba.
Proof of the growing resistance is in the number of anti-government signs that appear at sunrise, he told the newspapers, the rising rate of abstentions in elections and the complaints increasingly voiced by usually ultra-loyal military officers.
Castro, who succeeded ailing brother Fidel in 2006, has replied with increased harassments, threats and detentions after which activists are usually released in isolated rural roads, García said.
Like most Cuban dissidents, García also dismissed the economic reforms pushed by Castro for the past five years as an attempt to make only the minimum changes required to ensure the survival of the island’s communist political and economic system.
Although the reforms have brought about “some slight improvements in some sectors of the population,” García added, overall “the people see no improvement at all. The people see fraud.”
“The people want bread, but also freedom,” he said, adding that the opposition movement “will not settle for little changes.”
García also declared that the hierarchy of Cuba’s Catholic Church has been insensitive to the work of the dissident groups and that Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the archbishop of Havana, “does not enjoy credibility” among Cubans.
As for the foreign journalists based in Havana, he said that dissidents regularly send them news releases, photos and videos but they seldom publish the information. Cuba has expelled several foreign journalists whose coverage they deemed too negative.
Reporters in Havana are either “insensitive to the pain” of the opposition “or in clear complicity” with the government, he added.
García, who helped found the National Movement for Civic Resistance Pedro Luis Boitel, and his wife, Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, an activist in the Rosa Parks Movement for Civil Rights, plan to stay outside Cuba for about two months.
They are scheduled to meet Friday in Miami with Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart and former Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, all Miami Republicans. It is not yet known if they will travel to Washington or other countries to speak about Cuba.
García said he had the impression that people outside the island sometimes view the allegations of human rights and other abuses reported by dissidents as likely exaggerations, although dissidents most often don’t report all they suffer.
Government agents once attacked his wife and other women dissidents with machetes, he said. And he added that a prison guard once threw a rope into his cell and said, “Look, black guy. So you can hang yourself.”
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/08/3549600/cuban-dissident-antunez-says-women.html
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Cuban dissident's testimony that led to his beating and arrest
Transcript from last week's testimony in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Cuban pro-democracy leader Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez" first published online by Capitol Hill Cubans. Castro regime's response to this testimony was to beat up Antunez and his wife then disappear the opposition leader for four days before international outrage was able to obtain his release. Antunez now faces charges of "resistance," "disobedience" and "spreading false information."
Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez" file photo Reuters
JORGE LUIS GARCIA PEREZ "ANTUNEZ": Good afternoon, everybody. Good afternoon, Mrs. Jacobson, assistant secretary of state, Senator Menendez and everybody else present here. Very special greetings to my friend, Normando Hernandez Gonzalez, who is there with you.
It makes me very proud and excited to see Normando Hernandez Gonzalez there today because we shared political prisons. We both suffered beatings, oppression and hunger. He is like the best example of our homeland because he is a self-taught journalist that used to disseminate information in the prison. And I am very proud to see him represent us there today because he suffered all the oppression with a lot of dignity and decorum.
Something very important that my colleague Sarah Marta Fonseca just said was that we found out about this event with very short notice. And I think that shows the degree of oppression that we are under. And that speaks volumes of the repression that we feel. I had to, like she said, walk kilometers, hide behind trees and bushes, as if I was some kind of criminal, to attend an event that, in any other free and democratic country in the world, would be an everyday thing.
But thank God and thanks to the interests section for all the support given to us, we are here. It's been hard, but we are here and we are involved. I want you to know that a few days ago, as a result of brutal repression in an act of repudiation, I witnessed the death of Antonia Rodríguez Mirabal in the city of Santa Clara where a group of pro-democratic, peaceful activists, myself included, were gathered to talk about liberty, freedom, justice and human rights.
But that's not all, Mr. Senator. At this very moment, there's a black woman that has been on hunger strike for several days in Santa Clara. And hear me out here: Ms. Damaris Moya Portieles is on a -- thank you -- is on a hunger strike because the political police threatened to sexually abuse and rape her six-year-old daughter.
And we're not talking about the Cuba from before 1959 or any other country in Latin America or the South Africa of Botha. We're talking about the Cuba of the 21st century when horrible killings happen, such as the ones of Mr. Zapata Tamayo, Wilmar Villar Mendoza, Juan Wilfredo Soto and abuela -- which is grandmother -- Antonia.
And we need to bear in mind that no increase in remittances, no increase in the number of trips, no increase in the cultural exchanges can speed up the democratization process in our country. This only serves to strengthen the repression and to grant impunity to the people that commit these acts of repression.
It has been proven that -- and for this, I have my witnesses here, this Cubans that recently left the island, Mr. Normando Hernandez Gonzalez and my colleague here, Sarah Marta Fonseca -- that these increases in trips both from North Americans to Cuba and Cubans themselves have not helped at all with the democratic process in our country because those persons come to our country on matters that have nothing to do with what we're doing.
I would like to clarify that I fully respect President Barack Obama's Administration, and I know that everything that they are doing is with their best intentions. And both the Democratic and the Republican Parties are allied to the cause of liberty in Cuba. But Mr. Senators, when the opposition is increasing, both in qualitative as well as in quantitative terms, when there is an increase in the number of public protests all over the country, this is the time and these are the opportunities to support the resistance forces.
This is because the Cuban resistance forces are embarked on a head-on battle with the state. We suffer beatings. We suffer undue treatment -- harassment even -- in our own homes, torture and all kinds of systematic violations of our human rights.
To conclude, because I have already said a lot and those who spoke before me have done so very eloquently -- maybe even more so than me -- like Jose Marti said, the truth is to be said, not to be hidden.
And in this regard and in terms of the visas, I find Mariela Castro's visit to the United States being an official functionary of the regime that oppresses, that kills and that harasses the Cuban people, a complete insult and an utter offense to us. Now, Mariela Castro is out there visiting the United States.
And I would like to ask: Could we, the opponents in Cuba, the leaders of different organizations and different initiatives, go to the United States and return to the island freely?
Thank you very much.
It makes me very proud and excited to see Normando Hernandez Gonzalez there today because we shared political prisons. We both suffered beatings, oppression and hunger. He is like the best example of our homeland because he is a self-taught journalist that used to disseminate information in the prison. And I am very proud to see him represent us there today because he suffered all the oppression with a lot of dignity and decorum.
Something very important that my colleague Sarah Marta Fonseca just said was that we found out about this event with very short notice. And I think that shows the degree of oppression that we are under. And that speaks volumes of the repression that we feel. I had to, like she said, walk kilometers, hide behind trees and bushes, as if I was some kind of criminal, to attend an event that, in any other free and democratic country in the world, would be an everyday thing.
But thank God and thanks to the interests section for all the support given to us, we are here. It's been hard, but we are here and we are involved. I want you to know that a few days ago, as a result of brutal repression in an act of repudiation, I witnessed the death of Antonia Rodríguez Mirabal in the city of Santa Clara where a group of pro-democratic, peaceful activists, myself included, were gathered to talk about liberty, freedom, justice and human rights.
But that's not all, Mr. Senator. At this very moment, there's a black woman that has been on hunger strike for several days in Santa Clara. And hear me out here: Ms. Damaris Moya Portieles is on a -- thank you -- is on a hunger strike because the political police threatened to sexually abuse and rape her six-year-old daughter.
And we're not talking about the Cuba from before 1959 or any other country in Latin America or the South Africa of Botha. We're talking about the Cuba of the 21st century when horrible killings happen, such as the ones of Mr. Zapata Tamayo, Wilmar Villar Mendoza, Juan Wilfredo Soto and abuela -- which is grandmother -- Antonia.
And we need to bear in mind that no increase in remittances, no increase in the number of trips, no increase in the cultural exchanges can speed up the democratization process in our country. This only serves to strengthen the repression and to grant impunity to the people that commit these acts of repression.
It has been proven that -- and for this, I have my witnesses here, this Cubans that recently left the island, Mr. Normando Hernandez Gonzalez and my colleague here, Sarah Marta Fonseca -- that these increases in trips both from North Americans to Cuba and Cubans themselves have not helped at all with the democratic process in our country because those persons come to our country on matters that have nothing to do with what we're doing.
I would like to clarify that I fully respect President Barack Obama's Administration, and I know that everything that they are doing is with their best intentions. And both the Democratic and the Republican Parties are allied to the cause of liberty in Cuba. But Mr. Senators, when the opposition is increasing, both in qualitative as well as in quantitative terms, when there is an increase in the number of public protests all over the country, this is the time and these are the opportunities to support the resistance forces.
This is because the Cuban resistance forces are embarked on a head-on battle with the state. We suffer beatings. We suffer undue treatment -- harassment even -- in our own homes, torture and all kinds of systematic violations of our human rights.
To conclude, because I have already said a lot and those who spoke before me have done so very eloquently -- maybe even more so than me -- like Jose Marti said, the truth is to be said, not to be hidden.
And in this regard and in terms of the visas, I find Mariela Castro's visit to the United States being an official functionary of the regime that oppresses, that kills and that harasses the Cuban people, a complete insult and an utter offense to us. Now, Mariela Castro is out there visiting the United States.
And I would like to ask: Could we, the opponents in Cuba, the leaders of different organizations and different initiatives, go to the United States and return to the island freely?
Thank you very much.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Cuban dissidents released from arbitrary detention, one with dilated kidney and bleeding from beatings
“An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.” -Mohandas Gandhi
Idania Yanes Contreras had been beaten up and arrested on October 31, 2011 with Antúnez as they visited a hospitalized hunger striker. Released on November 3 she had to go to the hospital to receive treatment. She was suffering from an undetermined infection and the aftermath of the attack by regime agents. She was back home yesterday still suffering the effects from the physical assault by Cuban state security agents: a dilated kidney and bleeding.
On November 11, 2011 at 7:32pm Jorge Luís García Pérez "Antúnez" was released from an arbitrary detention by agents of the Cuban government and tweeted the following:
Idania Yanes Contreras had been beaten up and arrested on October 31, 2011 with Antúnez as they visited a hospitalized hunger striker. Released on November 3 she had to go to the hospital to receive treatment. She was suffering from an undetermined infection and the aftermath of the attack by regime agents. She was back home yesterday still suffering the effects from the physical assault by Cuban state security agents: a dilated kidney and bleeding.
On November 11, 2011 at 7:32pm Jorge Luís García Pérez "Antúnez" was released from an arbitrary detention by agents of the Cuban government and tweeted the following:
Just been released after 72 hours, if this is a strategy of attrition as officer Azaharis says, we accept the challenge. As for the Front "the streets belong to the people" is more than a slogan it is a matter of principle.Guillermo Fariñas Hernández nearly an hour earlier, at 6:38pm on November 11 reported via twitter:
In less than 30 days suffered 3 arrests of up to 72 hours, this is the repressive balance faced in recent days. If this is not political repression that someone prove otherwise to me.
The minutes of the Central Opposition Coalition (CCO) is concerned with the delicate state of health of our leader Idania, right kidney dilated and bleeding from police beatings.
Idania Yanez, already in her home in Santa Clara. With a dilated right kidney with bleeding from beatings. - FarinasThe Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) expressed its concern over recent attacks suffered by Idania Yanes Contreras in Cuba on November 10,2011.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Cuba: A place where asking questions can lead you to prison
"I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear." -Rosa Parks
Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera
Update #3: SOS from Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez" on twitter on June 16, 2011: Regime police brutally beat Yris in the head a few days ago. She has not recovered. Needs protection and a medical doctor urgently. Guillermo Fariñas Hernández on twitter today reported: "State Security prevented Antunez from taking his wife, recently hit in the head, for a medical consultation to a hospital in Havana."
Update #2: SOS from Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez" on twitter on Saturday May 28, 2011 : "Yris my wife with headaches and numbness in right cheek. I hold Castro brothers responsible for what happens to Yris as a result of police brutality she suffered. What was Yris's crime? Go outside peacefully to the streets with clothes inside out in protest? Caridad Caballero Batista, whereabouts continue to be unknown. We fear for her life."
Update: Yris is accounted for and back with her family as of Friday, May 27, 2011. Bloodied, bruised and disoriented from the beating suffered at the hand of Cuban state security but thankfully alive according to an early afternoon tweet from her husband.
In Cuba, marching nonviolently to remember victims of the dictatorship such as Orlando Zapata Tamayo and Pedro Luis Boitel can have dire consequences even for a mother. Scores of Cuban human rights defenders and activists were detained, roughed up, and in at least one case both their whereabouts and health status remain unknown.
Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, heads the Rosa Parks Feminist Movement for Civil Rights, a human rights movement in Cuba, named after Rosa Parks. She's suffered repression at the hands of the dictatorship before when she spoke out on behalf of a young man abused by the police and was the victim of racial epithets hurled at her by regime officials. There is a case to be made that the regime in Cuba has issues with racism.
Her husband, arrested along with her and still detained (but his location and health status are known) is Jorge Luis García Pérez, an opposition leader in the locality of Placetas, who was imprisoned on March 15, 1990 for "oral enemy propaganda" when he spoke out in favor of Eastern European style reforms in Cuba. García Pérez, known as "Antunez", was finally released more than 17 years later on April 22, 2007, having served one of the longest sentences for the present generation of political prisoners on the island. While in prison he founded along with others, an organization called the Pedro Luis Boitel Political Prisoner’s Movement. In November of 2009 he founded the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Civic Resistance and Civil Disobedience Front.adding the name after the Front's founding in honor of a prisoner of conscience who died on hunger strike on February 23, 2010.
A violent assault
A State Security agent who goes by the nickname “ the weightlifter” on the morning of May 25, 2011 at the end of an activity in remembrance of both Orlando Zapata Tamayo and Pedro Luis Boitel beat up Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera so badly that according to Cuban activist, Donaida Pérez Paseiro, she lost consciousness and when Yris came to she was suffering from nausea, a headache, dizziness and her hands were numb. She was arrested and jailed then taken to the hospital only to be returned to a cell but here whereabouts have been unaccounted for since then.
Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera and her husband, Jorge Luis García Pérez
When activists Donaida Pérez Paseiro and Yaimara Reyes Mesa went to the General Hospital in Placetas to ask about Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera's condition following the beating and loss of consciousness the two activists were arrested, beaten and held until 11pm on the evening of May 25th when they were released. They said that at that moment they saw a handcuffed Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera in a patrol car. Since then her whereabouts are unknown and neither friends nor family have seen her or learned about her location when questioning the authorities.
More arrests
Today, activists were detained as they walked towards State Security headquarters to try and find out the whereabouts of Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera and what had been done to the young activist as well as to request the release of all the detained activists. The march was led by Librado Linares, one of the prisoners of conscience released this past spring after more than 7 years in prison, who was the one designated to speak to the State Security agents representing the group. Víctor Castillo Ortega, José Lino Ascencio López, Mayda Conlledo García, Yanisbel Valido Pérez, Alberto Reyes Morales, Michel Oliva López, Félix Reyes Gutiérrez, Guillermo Fariñas Hernández (the 2011 Sakharov Prize winner), Guillermo Del Sol Pérez, Ana Alfonso Arteaga, Chichi Bernal Serpa and Librado Linares García were all arrested and at this hour remain in detention.
This is not the first time that state security agents have beaten up women exercising their freedom of expression. For example Sonia Garro and Mercedes Fresneda on October 7, 2010 marching with a banner that read "Down With Racism & Long Live Human Rights" were detained by police and badly beaten. According to Garro and Fresneda they were detained at the police station for seven hours where they were beaten. Sonia Garro suffered a fracture of the nasal septum and Mercedes Fresneda a broken left wrist among other injuries according to the EFE newswire.
However, this time it seems to be a coordinated effort to terrorize and repress at all levels. Today, Marcos Maikel (age 33) and Antonio Michel Lima Cruz (age 28), were sentenced to three and two years in prison (respectively) for "disrespect of patriotic symbols."
A slow motion crackdown
There is slow motion crackdown underway in Cuba. Some questions that arise: How long are the detentions and prison sentences and how violent are the Cuban State Security beat downs of nonviolent activists going to be? The death of Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia three days after a beat down by the political police of the Cuban dictatorship along with beat downs of Angel Moya Acosta and Sara Marta Fonseca indicate this is policy, not an isolated incident by over enthusiastic police.
In Cuba asking these questions and requesting the freedom of innocent nonviolent activists can get you arrested and beaten up. Celebrate the courage of those willing to risk all for their fellow citizens and at the same time living in the free world please take a moment and speak out for them.
What better way to celebrate the upcoming 50th anniversary of Amnesty International?
Yris Tamara Pérez AguileraUpdate #3: SOS from Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez" on twitter on June 16, 2011: Regime police brutally beat Yris in the head a few days ago. She has not recovered. Needs protection and a medical doctor urgently. Guillermo Fariñas Hernández on twitter today reported: "State Security prevented Antunez from taking his wife, recently hit in the head, for a medical consultation to a hospital in Havana."
Update #2: SOS from Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez" on twitter on Saturday May 28, 2011 : "Yris my wife with headaches and numbness in right cheek. I hold Castro brothers responsible for what happens to Yris as a result of police brutality she suffered. What was Yris's crime? Go outside peacefully to the streets with clothes inside out in protest? Caridad Caballero Batista, whereabouts continue to be unknown. We fear for her life."
Update: Yris is accounted for and back with her family as of Friday, May 27, 2011. Bloodied, bruised and disoriented from the beating suffered at the hand of Cuban state security but thankfully alive according to an early afternoon tweet from her husband.
Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, heads the Rosa Parks Feminist Movement for Civil Rights, a human rights movement in Cuba, named after Rosa Parks. She's suffered repression at the hands of the dictatorship before when she spoke out on behalf of a young man abused by the police and was the victim of racial epithets hurled at her by regime officials. There is a case to be made that the regime in Cuba has issues with racism.
Her husband, arrested along with her and still detained (but his location and health status are known) is Jorge Luis García Pérez, an opposition leader in the locality of Placetas, who was imprisoned on March 15, 1990 for "oral enemy propaganda" when he spoke out in favor of Eastern European style reforms in Cuba. García Pérez, known as "Antunez", was finally released more than 17 years later on April 22, 2007, having served one of the longest sentences for the present generation of political prisoners on the island. While in prison he founded along with others, an organization called the Pedro Luis Boitel Political Prisoner’s Movement. In November of 2009 he founded the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Civic Resistance and Civil Disobedience Front.adding the name after the Front's founding in honor of a prisoner of conscience who died on hunger strike on February 23, 2010.
A violent assault
A State Security agent who goes by the nickname “ the weightlifter” on the morning of May 25, 2011 at the end of an activity in remembrance of both Orlando Zapata Tamayo and Pedro Luis Boitel beat up Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera so badly that according to Cuban activist, Donaida Pérez Paseiro, she lost consciousness and when Yris came to she was suffering from nausea, a headache, dizziness and her hands were numb. She was arrested and jailed then taken to the hospital only to be returned to a cell but here whereabouts have been unaccounted for since then.
Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera and her husband, Jorge Luis García PérezWhen activists Donaida Pérez Paseiro and Yaimara Reyes Mesa went to the General Hospital in Placetas to ask about Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera's condition following the beating and loss of consciousness the two activists were arrested, beaten and held until 11pm on the evening of May 25th when they were released. They said that at that moment they saw a handcuffed Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera in a patrol car. Since then her whereabouts are unknown and neither friends nor family have seen her or learned about her location when questioning the authorities.
More arrests
Today, activists were detained as they walked towards State Security headquarters to try and find out the whereabouts of Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera and what had been done to the young activist as well as to request the release of all the detained activists. The march was led by Librado Linares, one of the prisoners of conscience released this past spring after more than 7 years in prison, who was the one designated to speak to the State Security agents representing the group. Víctor Castillo Ortega, José Lino Ascencio López, Mayda Conlledo García, Yanisbel Valido Pérez, Alberto Reyes Morales, Michel Oliva López, Félix Reyes Gutiérrez, Guillermo Fariñas Hernández (the 2011 Sakharov Prize winner), Guillermo Del Sol Pérez, Ana Alfonso Arteaga, Chichi Bernal Serpa and Librado Linares García were all arrested and at this hour remain in detention.
Video above is from a February 2011 arrest of Yris
This is not the first time that state security agents have beaten up women exercising their freedom of expression. For example Sonia Garro and Mercedes Fresneda on October 7, 2010 marching with a banner that read "Down With Racism & Long Live Human Rights" were detained by police and badly beaten. According to Garro and Fresneda they were detained at the police station for seven hours where they were beaten. Sonia Garro suffered a fracture of the nasal septum and Mercedes Fresneda a broken left wrist among other injuries according to the EFE newswire.
However, this time it seems to be a coordinated effort to terrorize and repress at all levels. Today, Marcos Maikel (age 33) and Antonio Michel Lima Cruz (age 28), were sentenced to three and two years in prison (respectively) for "disrespect of patriotic symbols."
A slow motion crackdown
There is slow motion crackdown underway in Cuba. Some questions that arise: How long are the detentions and prison sentences and how violent are the Cuban State Security beat downs of nonviolent activists going to be? The death of Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia three days after a beat down by the political police of the Cuban dictatorship along with beat downs of Angel Moya Acosta and Sara Marta Fonseca indicate this is policy, not an isolated incident by over enthusiastic police.
In Cuba asking these questions and requesting the freedom of innocent nonviolent activists can get you arrested and beaten up. Celebrate the courage of those willing to risk all for their fellow citizens and at the same time living in the free world please take a moment and speak out for them.
What better way to celebrate the upcoming 50th anniversary of Amnesty International?
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