Cuban journalist Roberto de Jesús Quiñones released from prison today looking emaciated.

Roberto de Jesús Quiñones, an independent Cuban  journalist and attorney, jailed since September 11, 2019 for having covered the political show trial of two parents who were evangelical pastors for homeschooling their children was freed today. Cubanet broke the good news. 

Below is a photo of Roberto before entering prison and a photograph today after he was released with the journalist extremely emaciated.

Fast Against Crime: Remembering Boitel and Zapata while demanding freedom for all political prisoners

We remember and continue to demand justice.

Cuba, under the Castro regime, has had prisoners of conscience over the past 62 years, and this is a painful reality that many have become accustomed to,  but not all.

On May 13th hundreds of Cubans inside and outside of Cuba initiated a three day fast. They are calling for the freedom of all political prisoners in Cuba and an an end to state repression.

This fast started on the anniversary of the birth of Pedro Luis Boitel and will end on the anniversary of the birth of Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

Both are prisoners of conscience who were tortured by Castro regime officials over many years, and resisted through non-violence until the end. Below are brief biographies of the two human rights defenders.

Pedro Luis Boitel was born in Cuba to a family of modest means of French origin. He studied at the University of Havana while working as a radio technician. Opposing the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista he joined the July 26 movement led by Fidel Castro. The majority of the movement's members like Pedro were anti-communists.

Once Batista left for exile and Fidel Castro took control the anti-communist members of the July 26 movement became an obstacle to absolute power. Following the revolution, Boitel returned to University were his fellow students nominated to run for the presidency of the Federation of University Students in 1960.  Fidel Castro personally intervened to remove him from the presidency. Pedro Luis Boitel's threat to the emerging communist regime was that he refused to betray the Federation of University Students and sought to maintain academic freedom and autonomy.

As time went on and the dictatorial nature of the Castro regime became more apparent, the student leader became an opponent to Fidel Castro. Condemned to a decade in prison in 1961 he served the cruel and unjust sentence but as the date of his release came and went prison officials refused to free him. In response to the years of cruelty, torture and now denial of his freedom he went on hunger strike on April 3, 1972. Pedro Luis Boitel died forty five years ago on May 25, 1972 after 53 days on hunger strike in Havana in the Castillo del Principe. Academic freedom and autonomy ended in 1960 replaced with fear, repression, and ideological litmus tests to attend university. It has still not been restored today.


Fifteen years later, in the documentary Nobody Listened, Boitel's mother spoke on camera about her son's imprisonment and death.

 
Orlando Zapata Tamayo was born in Santiago, Cuba on May 15, 1967. He was by vocation a brick layer and also a human rights activist, a member of the Movimiento Alternativa Republicana, Alternative Republican Movement, and of the Consejo Nacional de Resistencia Cívica, National Civic Resistance Committee. Orlando gathered signatures for the Varela Project, a citizen initiative to amend the Cuban constitution using legal means with the aim of bringing Cuba in line with international human rights standards.

Amnesty International documented how Orlando was arrested several times in the past. For example he was temporarily detained on 3 July 2002 and 28 October 2002 for his human rights activism. In November of 2002 after taking part in a workshop on human rights in the central Havana park, José Martí, he and eight other activists were arrested and later released. He was also arrested on December 6, 2002 along with fellow prisoners of conscience Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet and Raúl Arencibia Fajardo.

Dr. Biscet just released from prison a month earlier had sought to form a grassroots project for the promotion of human rights called "Friends of Human Rights." State security prevented them from entering the home of Raúl Arencibia Fajardo, Oscar Biscet, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Virgilio Marante Güelmes and 12 others held a sit-in in the street in protest and chanted "long live human rights" and "freedom for political prisoners." They were then arrested and taken to the Tenth Unit of the National Revolutionary Police, Décima Unidad de La Policía Nacional Revolucionaria (PNR), in Havana. 

Orlando Zapata Tamayo was released three months later on March 8, 2003, but Oscar Elias Biscet, Virgilio Marante Güelmes, and Raúl Arencibia Fajardo remained imprisoned. On the morning of March 20, 2003 whilst taking part in a fast at the Fundación Jesús Yánez Pelletier, Jesús Yánez Pelletier Foundation, in Havana, to demand the release of Oscar Biscet and the other political prisoners. Orlando was taken to the Villa Marista State Security Headquarters. 
 
He was moved around several prisons, including Quivicán Prison, Guanajay Prison, and Combinado del Este Prison in Havana. Where according to Amnesty International on October 20, 2003 Orlando was dragged along the floor of Combinado del Este Prison by prison officials after requesting medical attention, leaving his back full of lacerations. Orlando managed to smuggle a letter out following a brutal beating it was published in April of 2004:

My dear brothers in the internal opposition in Cuba. I have many things to say to you, but I did not want to do it with paper and ink, because I hope to go to you one day when our country is free without the Castro dictatorship. Long live human rights, with my blood I wrote to you so that this be saved as evidence of the savagery we are subjected to... 

The uproar caused by his death was a key factor in the later release over the course of 2010 and 2011 of the remaining prisoners of conscience imprisoned in 2003. Following Orlando's death, Amnesty International said that "Cuban authorities [were] responsible for activist's death on hunger strike." 



Activists in Cuba have organized themselves under the Twitter hashtag #AyunoContraElCrimen (#FastAgainstCrime) and in their demand to free all political prisoners have highlighted the case of Roberto de Jesús Quiñones, an independent journalist and attorney, jailed since September 11, 2019 for having covered the political show trial of two homeschooling parents.

King and Queen of Spain are ignoring Cuban dissidents

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality." -  Desmond Tutu

The Miami Herald, November 13, 2019

King and Queen of Spain are turning a blind eye to Cuba’s oppression | Opinion 

Diaz-Canel, left, with Spain’s King Felipe VI review troops in Havana, Cuba, R Espinosa AP

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article237328414.html#storylink=cpy

Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia arrived in Cuba for an official visit on Nov. 11, just days before the 500th anniversary of the founding of Havana by Spanish representatives.

Before the royal visit it was announced that the Royal couple would not meet with dissidents.

Amnesty International sent King Felipe a letter, made public on Nov. 8, petitioning him to make four requests during his visit to Cuba: Release six Cuban prisoners of conscience, José Pilot Guide , Silverio Portal Contreras, Mitzael Díaz Paseiro, Eliecer Bandera Barrera, Edilberto Ronal Azuaga, and Roberto de Jesús Quiñones Haces and repeal their sentences; Inform José Daniel Ferrer García of the charges against him or release him. Meanwhile, ensure that he has access to his family, lawyer and medical care; End harassment of Cuban artists Luis Manuel Otero and Amaury Pacheco; Repeal Decree 349 that prohibits all artistic activity without prior approval from the regime.

Spain is a constitutional monarchy, and the king must do what Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the ultimate political authority, instructs. Unfortunately, Sánchez is a member of the Spanish Socialist Party.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez with representative of Castro dictatorship in 2018

He visited Cuba in November 2018 and failed to speak publicly for Cuban prisoner of conscience Eduardo Cardet or address the July 22, 2012, murder of Spanish Cuban dual citizen Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas. Instead, Sánchez pledged to pour money into the Cuban dictatorship that strengthened the military and police state that oppresses Cubans and Venezuelans. This has been the first visit to Cuba by a Spanish prime minister in 20 years. Unlike his predecessor, José María Aznar, he did not meet with Cuban dissidents. He has now instructed King Felipe to do the same. This is a sad time for those of us who have affection for the Spanish people.

Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar with Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas

The Spanish prime minister’s failure to be consistent on human rights is appalling. On Oct. 24, Sanchez presided over the exhumation of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco from the Valley of the Fallen and said this “ends a moral affront — the exaltation of a dictator in a public place.” But this politician’s outrage did not extend to Fidel Castro’s regime declaring three days of mourning when Francisco Franco died in 1975, or the “special relationship” between the two despots. Moral blindness is found across the political spectrum, but Sanchez reached new lows in his relationship with the Castro dictatorship. 

Che Guevara attends bull fight with Franco's secret police in 1959

The so-called “special relationship” between Castro and Franco, which saw Che Guevara attending a bull fight with members of Franco’s secret police, was not so special on the Cuban side. In their 2017 book,  History of a challenge five decades of relentless struggle of the Civil Guard against ETA (Historia de un desafío: Cinco décadas de lucha sin cuartel de la Guardia Civil contra ETA), Manuel Sánchez and Manuela Simón reveal that, “In the spring of 1964, ETA militants received training in Cuba with lessons on kidnappings, subversion and sabotage. Thus began the ideological and terrorist training that would later be a constant in the history of the terrorist band.” 

The Cuban Communist dictatorship has a long history of sponsoring and engaging in terrorism around the world, and Spain was not exempt.

ETA terrorists were trained by Cubans in 1964 according to 2017 book.

This year, the great city of Havana deserves to be honored on its 500th anniversary and its origins remembered. Havana was founded at its present location by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar in 1519. The city would thrive and flourish for centuries, but the arrival of the Castro regime in 1959 ushered in six decades of decay and destruction that continue. Communist rule has been hard on the historic city, with many sections falling apart.

Sadly, it’s all too clear why Havana inspired German filmmaker Florian Borchmeyer in 2006 to make a documentary titled “Havana — The New Art of Making Ruins.”

Parts of old Havana are literally crumbling away.

John Suarez is executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba, based in Falls Church, Virginia.

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article237328414.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article237328414.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article237328414.html#storylink=cpy

International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists: Taking a closer look at Cuba

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." - Elie Wiesel, Nobel Lecture 1986

The United Nations has declared November 2nd the "International Day To End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists" and a call has been raised for accountability. Cuba has a terrible record with regards to journalism and journalists. For the sake of brevity will focus on a recent case, a cold case, and a brief summary of what happened to the press in Cuba over the past six decades.

On August 7, 2019 Roberto de Jesus Quiñones was sentenced to a year in prison in a rigged trial. Amnesty International has recognized the jailed journalist as a prisoner of conscience. On September 11, 2019 he began serving his time in prison. Roberto is in prison for being a journalist and covering a story in Cuba.

Cuban Independent journalist Roberto Quiñones in prison since September 11th

On April 22, 2019 Roberto de Jesús Quiñones was beaten up for covering the trial of a religious couple sentenced to prison for homeschooling their kids. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported on April 24th what had happened:

On April 22nd at around 2:00 p.m., Cuban police agents detained Quiñones, a contributor to the news website CubaNet, as he was standing outside of the Guantánamo Municipal Tribunal, according to CubaNet and the Association for Press Freedom (APLP), a Cuban press freedom organization. At the time of his detention, Quiñones was covering the trial of two Cuban evangelical pastors facing charges for homeschooling their children, CubaNet reported. While being transported in the police car, agents beat Quiñones, injuring his mouth, tongue, and right thumb and causing an inflammation in his right ear, his wife told APLP.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists in the same report "Cuba is one of the most hostile environments for the press in the world, and ranks among CPJ's 10 Most Censored Countries."

Roberto Quiñones was physically assaulted on April 22, 2019.

Providing historical context on journalism in Cuba over the past sixty years

Prior to 1959, Cuba had problems – an authoritarian dictatorship imposed in 1952 that was unwanted – however it did have numerous newspapers, radio stations and television that challenged the Batista regime along with a vibrant civil society that struggled and protested against the dictator.

Now with the arrival of the Castro regime in 1959 promising the restoration of democracy and the rule of law – the exact opposite was done. Mass executions were broadcast and filmed to terrorize the population. Independent newspaper editors, were first warned that their lives were at hazard if they wrote critically against the regime and within a year and a couple of months all of the independent newspapers were shutdown, on occasion by violent mobs organized by the dictatorship and replaced with regime publications subordinated to the communist party line.

On August 3, 2011, José Ignacio Rivero passed away in exile in Miami he was the last publisher of Cuba’s legendary Diario de la Marina from 1944 to 1960. It was a family paper handed down from father to son over three generations. José Ignacio was the son of Pepín Rivero (publisher from 1919-1944) and the grandson of its founder Nicolás Rivero. It was Cuba’s longest running newspaper with the highest circulation with roots back to two newspapers: 1813 with El Lucero de la Habana (The Havana Star) and the Noticioso Mercantil (The Mercantile Seer) whose 1832 merger established El Noticioso y Lucero de la Habana, which in 1844 was renamed the Diario de la Marina.

This newspaper gave voice to a wide range of opinion. It gave a platform to many distinguished Cuban intellectuals. From 1902 to 1959 it defended the best interests of a democratic Cuba, while opposing the dictatorships of Gerardo Machado in the 1930s and Fulgencio Batista in the 1950s. It was the only newspaper in Cuba that published the letters of Huber Matos, one of the commanders of the revolution, denouncing the emerging communist dictatorship written from his prison cell after his October 1959 arrest for “counter-revolutionary treason”.

On May 12, 1960—the Diario de la Marina newspaper was closed, a day after José Ignacio Rivero took refuge in the Peruvian Embassy in Havana. The day following the closing of La Marina, Cuba's last remaining privately-owned newspaper (Prensa Libre) “Free Press” was attacked by a mob and shut down. La Marina’s offices and equipment were confiscated by the dictatorship and used to publish its dictatorship controlled newspapers.

Things did not improve over the next six decades. 

The Cold Case: Omar Darío Pérez Hernández
Omar Darío Pérez Hernández was an independent journalist in Cuba and he has been missing since 2004. He was just 39 years old at the time of his disappearance. They said that the secret police were threatening him with prison and that he and three others had set out to leave the country on December 7, 2003 but they were never heard from again.

Omar Darío Pérez Hernández missing since 2003

One of the things that had outraged Castro's secret police was Omar Darío's video interview of young university students expelled from school in November of 2002 for having signed the Varela Project.

In a grainy video Omar asked Roger Rubio Lima, Joan Columbié Rodríguez and Harold Cepero Escalante about what had happened. In Cuba asking who, what, where, when and why can get you jailed, killed or in the case of Omar Darío disappeared.

Sixty one days after his disappearance his poor 60 year old mother, Zenaida Hernández Nápoles, exclaimed: ""I'm desperate, I have the hope that they are alive, although sometimes I think the worst."

Fifteen years with no answers. Fifteen years without justice. Fifteen years of impunity.

Nine years later on July 22, 2012 Harold Cepero Escalante, one of the students who had been expelled from university for signing Project Varela and interviewed by Omar, was killed along with Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas.

We the living have an obligation to ask: What happened to Omar Darío Pérez Hernández? We also have an obligation to demand that Roberto de Jesús Quiñones be freed immediately, and finally we must continue to demand that a free and independent press be legal once again in Cuba.

Please tell the Castro regime to end impunity for crimes against journalists, free jailed reporters, and recognize that Cubans have a right to a free press.