Totalitarianism in Cuba 2017 revealed: Documentary exposes how Castro regime targets dissidents' families

Why the Cuban government in 2017 is still a totalitarian dictatorship.

First showing of POLITICAL PRISONERS IN CUBA Avatars of the Family

This morning Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina founding member of the Eastern Democratic Alliance and founder of the audio visual project Palenque Visión unveiled the documentary POLITICAL PRISONERS IN CUBA Avatars of the Family PRISIONEROS POLITICOS EN CUBA Avatares de la Familia at the Bacardi House at the University of Miami co-hosted by the Center for a Free Cuba and the Institute for Cuban Cuban American Studies.  There was a brief introduction, followed by a showing of the 29 minute 16 second documentary and a discussion after the documentary between Rolando and the audience.

The importance of this documentary is that it reveals the Castro regime's apparatus of repression targeting friends, family and neighbors of dissidents with the aim of isolating all that dissent from the official line with escalating consequences that can end in prison or death. These consequences are not restricted to the individual dissident but target his or her entire social network. This documentary is an important work that exposes the existing totalitarian nature of the Castro regime in 2017.

Rolando has been detained by Cuban State Security over a 100 times over the past 31 years as an opposition activist and also spent a total of six years and two months in prison on three separate occasions. At the same time the documentary filmmaker explained how state security had opened a case file against his nine year old son and was already targeting him at school. Harassment and exclusion are a starting point in a sinister strategy that seeks to destroy socially, and some times physically, those who disagree with you.

The full documentary is now available online to all. Hopefully an English subtitled version will be available to reach a greater audience.

Crackdown on journalists in Cuba denounced by Reporters Without Borders

In addition to the individuals named below by Reporters Without Borders, Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina and Manuel Alejandro León were also detained for seven hours on October 14, 2016 and threatened with prison for trying to provide reporting on the impact of Hurricane Matthew.

Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina (left) Manuel Alejandro León detained (Right)

Crackdown on media includes ban on Hurricane Matthew coverage

By Reporters Without Borders

The arrests of journalists trying to inform fellow citizens about the widespread damage caused by Hurricane Matthew’s passage over eastern Cuba on 4 October are the latest example of how the Cuban government continues its harassment of independent journalism. Their reporting clearly did not please the authorities .

Maykel González Vivero, a journalist working for the Diario de Cuba news website, was arrested in the eastern city of Baracoa on 10 October while interviewing people about hurricane damage and was held for three days. He had just been fired from state-owned Radio Sagua for working for independent media.

On 11 October, it was the turn of six members of the Havana-based Periodismo de Barrio news website, include its director, Elaine Díaz, to be arrested while visiting Baracoa to cover the aftermath of the hurricane. Their equipment was confiscated for several hours.

The team of Periodismo de Barrio heading to Baracoa, Guantánamo. via Facebook

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article107930822.html#storylink=cpy

According to the authorities, the journalists were arrested under the state of emergency proclaimed by President Raúl Castro on 4 October, which supposedly prohibited journalistic reporting without special authorization. But for the state of emergency to be valid, it should have been accompanied by a resolution defining how and in what regions of the country it was to be applied. No such resolution was ever formally issued by the authorities.

There is no shortage of subjects that are off-limits for unauthorized media outlets. Reinaldo Escobar, a journalist with the 14ymedio website, was unable to cover the inauguration of the first regular flight between the United States and Cuba. He was arrested in Santa Clara on 31 august for doing “enemy journalism” and was forcibly escorted back to Havana.

Oscar Sánchez Madan, a reporter for the Hablemos Press independent news agency, was arrested by three members of the National evolutionary Police (PNR) in the municipality of Cárdenas on 18 August while interviewing Leticia Ramos Herrería, a representative of the Ladies in White, a movement formed by the wives of political prisoners.

“We deplore the Cuban government’s growing hostility towards the country’s independent media,” said Emmanuel Colombié, the head of RSF’s Latin America desk.
“The recent attempts to censor ‘unofficial’ media, especially during a natural disaster, are completely unproductive and reinforce self-censorship, which is very harmful for the entire country. The Cuban government should drop its ideological postures and help the independent media to develop instead of systematically opposing them.”

There have been many cases of harassment in recent months, making independent reporting impossible. RSF has learned that four Hablemos Press members – director Roberto Jesús Guerra Pérez, deputy director Eduardo Herrera, executive director Magalay Otero Suárez and reporter Arian Guerra – had no choice but to leave Cuba at the end of September after repeated threats.

Hablemos Press has been the target of harassment and arbitrary arrests for 13 years. Guerra Pérez told RSF he had been constantly harassed by the government in recent weeks in the form of comments by state employees in the street, telephone death threats or being repeatedly prevented from working. Now that he is in exile, he fears an illegal raid on the news agency’s headquarters in the coming weeks.

The Centro de Información Legal (Cubalex), a Cuban NGO that defends media freedom, has been subjected to various forms of harassment –including searches, disconnected phone lines and humiliating interrogations – since it issued a report on free speech in Cuba and presented it to the United Nations in Geneva. The level of persecution of Cubalex got to the point that the office of the special rapporteur on freedom of expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued an alert on 13 October condemning the harassment.

14ymedio, the website found by Yoani Sánchez (an RSF media freedom heroine in 2014), revealed in an investigative report in September that Cuba’s state-owned telephone company Etecsa was blocking text messages containing the terms “human rights” or “hunger strike,” the name of the opposition magazine Convivencia, or the names of certain government opponents.

At the same time, the list of websites that are blocked or are the target of cyber-attacks has lengthened this year and now includes such sites as Cubaencuentro and Martinoticias.

Cuba is ranked 171st out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2016 World Press Freedom Index – the lowest position in Latin America.

Principled and Strategic Nonviolence are the path for a Free Cuba

"A single idea, if it is right, saves us the labor of an infinity of experiences." - Jacques Maritain

On December third at the Paths for a Democratic Cuba international conference organized by the Christian Democrat Organization of America and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation spoke on the afternoon panel "Political Opposition: Towards a unity of action and strategies for Change." Below is an abbreviated version of the presentation.

Listening to the panels this morning on civil society and the political opposition led to a re-think on this presentation. But first would like to address what my colleague Andres Hernandez of the Christian Democratic Party of Cuba concerning the international situation with regards to Cuba.

In 2013 a cargo ship that left Cuba bound for North Korea was discovered to be full of weapons: including rockets and MiG fighter jets hidden under bags of sugar which it tried to smuggle through the Panama Canal. Despite an investigation by the United Nations that demonstrated that the Cuban government had violated international sanctions against North Korea no action was taken. The regime in Cuba has expanded its power and influence in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador and exporting its repressive model.

Meanwhile the Obama Administration has had a policy of loosening restrictions despite an American being held hostage, Alan Gross, since December 2009 and escalating high profile deaths of opposition figures beginning with Orlando Zapata Tamayo in 2010 followed by Lady in White founder Laura Inés Pollán Toledo in 2011 and Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero in 2012. Not to mention escalating violence against opposition activists including machete and knife attacks in 2013 and 2014. These are difficult times.

However, lets return to this morning's focus on how to achieve change inside Cuba.

Vladimiro Roca in the second panel this morning stated that there was no top down change in the island: "No change in Cuba. There are adjustments that are reversible. ...When there is change there is no regression."

Since the founding of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights in 1976 there has existed in overall terms a general strategy of change that can be summed up as: " Carrying out a nonviolent struggle in defense of human rights for the freedom of Cuba."

Looking at another definition of strategy that divides it into three parts gives a better idea of the challenges facing the democratic opposition:

1. Diagnostic: A totalitarian dictatorship with dynastic elements with the political will to hang on to power.
2. Guiding policy: nonviolence
3. Action plan: There exist different areas of emphasis by the opposition and civil society that is also something found in nonviolent struggles.

There is common agreement that the best and most effective manner to confront the totalitarian system in Cuba is with non-violence.

In the second panel this morning Cuesta Morua said that "the means are as important as the ends." This brought to mind Mohandas Gandhi's observation on ends and means:  "They say ‘means are after all means’. I would say ‘means are after all everything’. As the means so the end."

Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina in this morning's first panel explained that "the populace is obtaining information but there are still deficiencies in the knowledge of democracy and human rights." Rolando went on to explain that "the nonviolent struggle is not sufficiently known either within the population or the resistance itself," and he also observed that there needs to be not only more struggle but more preparation.

This presents a challenge because if non-violence is just a buzzword that is not understood then the reality is that the opposition may have multiple meanings on what nonviolence is but without internalizing its meaning. Unfortunately, nonviolence is often confused with passivity.

Nevertheless there are specific areas of consensus, for example Reinaldo Escobar this morning mentioned four points of minimum consensus now circulating in the island:

1. Freedom of political prisoners in Cuba including activists on probation
2. End repression against nonviolent organizations: this includes ending arbitrary detentions, acts of repudiation, etc.
3. Ratification of human rights and labor covenants
4. Recognize the legitimacy of the emerging Cuban civil society

At the same time the 1998 Agreement for Democracy signed by 121 organizations inside and outside of Cuba has 10 points of which three coincide with four points mentioned by Rolando: 

2. Immediately issue a general amnesty for the liberation of all political prisoners, including those who have been sentenced for fictitious common crimes, and cancel the pending political causes against Cubans in exile, so as to facilitate their return to the homeland and their reintegration into the national society.
4. Recognize and protect the freedom of expression, the press, association, assembly, peaceful demonstration, profession, and religion.
6. Immediately legalize all political parties and other organizations and activities of civil society.

This lists concern outcomes, the ends which everyone agrees on, but the lack of understanding of what nonviolence means both on a strategic and individual level is more problematic because it addresses the means to achieve the ends. Within academic circles there are two broad areas of nonviolent thought: strategic and principled nonviolence. Strategic nonviolence has been advocated by among others, Gene Sharp of the Albert Einstein Institute and principled nonviolence by Michael Nagler of the Metta Center for Nonviolence.

Strategic nonviolence takes a pragmatic approach that is based on being more effective then violence: 

Non-violent resistance is an armed struggle but its weapons are not deployed to do violence or kill. These arms are  psychological, social, economic and political weapons. Gene Sharp argues with much evidence "that this is ultimately more powerful against oppression, injustice and tyranny then violence.

Historical studies are cited that demonstrate the higher success rates of nonviolent movements when compared against violent ones:

University Academics Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth in their 2008 study "Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic on Nonviolent Conflict" compared the outcomes of 323 nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006. They found that major nonviolent campaigns have achieved success 53 percent of the time, compared with just under half that at 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns. Finally there study also suggests “that nonviolent campaigns are more likely than violent campaigns to succeed in the face of brutal repression.”

Principled nonviolence looks at the spiritual dimension, and the power of an individual to change and in doing so impact the world. Mohandas Gandhi described it as follows on September 8, 1913 in Indian Opinion: 

"We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do."

The advantage of principled non-violence and taking it up as a daily practice in ones life is that it gives one the strength to resist provocations and builds up the character of the practitioner. Metta Center defines it as follows:

Principled nonviolence is not merely a strategy nor the recourse of the weak, it is a positive force that does not manifest its full potential until it is adopted on principle. Often its practitioners feel that it expresses something fundamental about human nature, and who they wish to become as individuals. To adopt principled nonviolence is not a quick and easy decision one can make through logic but a slow, perhaps lifetime endeavor. Nonetheless, we focus on principled nonviolence because we think it has the potential for creating permanent, long-term change.  Ultimately it can rebuild many of our institutions on a more humane and sustainable foundation. In the long run nonviolence is, as Gandhi said, an “experiment with truth.” We have all to experiment with nonviolence in the way that seems best to us, because in the end the world will need all our experiences to arrive at a new order based on nonviolence.

Michael Nagler provides the following Six Principles of Nonviolence that can serve as a guide for individuals to empower themselves:

1. Respect everyone – including yourself. The more we respect others, the more effectively we can persuade the m to change. Never use humiliation as a tool — or accept humiliation from others ; that degrades everyone. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (Martin Luther King, Jr.) . Remember, nobody can degrade you without your permission. The real success in nonviolence , which violence can never achieve, is to heal relationships. Even in a case of extreme violence, Gandhi felt it was possible to hate the sin, not the sinner.

2. Always include ‘Constructive Programme’. Concrete action is always more powerful than mere symbolism, especially when that concrete action is constructive: setting up schools, cottage industries, cooperative farms, etc. [...] Constructive work has many advantages:

• It enables people to break their dependency on a regime, by creating their own goods and services. You cannot get rid of an oppressor when you’re depending on him for something essential.
• It’s proactive ; you are not just reacting to offenses but taking charge. This helps you shed passivity, fear, and helplessness.
• It gives a movement continuity , as it can continue when direct resistance is not advisable.
 • It builds community . Studies have shown that working together is the most effective way to unite people. CP also reassures the general public that your movement is not a danger to the social order

And, most importantly,

• CP builds the infrastructure that will be needed when the oppressive regime falls. Many an insurrection has succeeded only to find a new set of oppressors rush into the vacuum. So a good guideline to follow is:  Be constructive wherever possible, obstructive wherever necessary. [...]

4.  Look for “win/win” solutions that will satisfy the real needs of all parties . Remember that you are trying to rebuild relationships , if at all possible, not score “victories.” In a conflict , we can feel that in order for one side to win, the other has to lose ; but this is a not true . Therefore, in nonviolence we do not seek to be winners, or rise over others; we seek to learn and to make things better for all.

5 . Use Power Carefully. We are conditioned (especially in the West) to think that power “grows out of the barrel of a gun.” There is indeed a kind of power that comes from threats and brute force – but it is powerless if we refuse to comply with them. There is another kind of power that comes from truth. Let us say that you have been petitioning to have an injustice removed; perhaps you have made your feelings known in polite but firm protest actions, but the other party is not responding. Then you must, as Gandhi said, “not only speak to the head but move the heart also.” And this we can do by taking upon ourselves, to make it clear, the suffering inherent in the unjust system . This is known as Satyagraha, or ‘truth force.’ In extreme cases we may have to do it at the risk of our life (which is why it is good to be very clear about our goals!).

[In the Cuban context there are examples of activists such as Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Laura Inés Pollán Toledo, and Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas who were threatened with death but continued their nonviolent activism risking their lives for their fellow citizens and paid the ultimate price.]

Do this with care. History, and often our own experience, has shown that even bitter hostilities can melt with this kind of persuasion that seeks to open the eyes of the opponent rather than coerce him or her. Nonetheless, there are times when we must use forms of coercion, for example, when a dictator refuses to step down, and we have to act immediately to end the vast amounts of human suffering that is caused by that person misusing power. Even then, it requires strategic thinking and nonviolent care to do it right. But when time does allow we use the power of patience and persuasion, of enduring rather than inflicting suffering. The changes brought about by persuasion are lasting: one who is persuaded stays persuaded, while someone who is coerced will be just waiting for the chance for revenge.

6 . Claim our Legacy . Nonviolence no longer needs to take place in a vacu um. To know the history of the many nonviolent movements we referred to at the beginning, and be in touch with others involved in similar efforts today, can be very helpful. 

Colleague on my right spoke about the nonviolent revolution in Burkina Faso, but today in Hong Kong a nonviolent movement born in 1989, in reaction to the massacre of students in Beijing in June of that year, anticipated the British handover to main land China in 1997 demanding democratic reforms and an agreement for the transfer that protected the rights and freedoms of Hong Kong residents. Since 1997 when the Chinese communist regime has sought to renege on its agreements: taking over education in order to indoctrinate Hong Kong youth; passing anti-subversion laws that would've gutted civil liberties hundreds of thousands took to the streets nonviolently with concrete demands and succeeded in stopping the power grab. Now in 2014 the announcement was made that the selection of candidates and the universal suffrage of Hong Kongers would not be respected and hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets and key areas of Hong Kong have been occupied.  These are movements worth studying.

Unfortunately, the temptation to embrace violence, especially after provocations with the belief that it will speed up change has been demonstrated time and time again to be a failure. For example following the Sharpesville massacre in 1960 the African National Congress abandoned its nonviolence stance and prolonged the existence of the Apartheid state for another three decades. It was not the African National Congress and the armed struggle that brought the Apartheid regime to the negotiating table but the United Democratic Front (UDF) and mass civic nonviolent action combined with international sanctions.

The path to a free Cuba is to be found in the intersection of principled and strategic nonviolence.

CELAC 2014: What would José Martí do?

"I am especially pleased to be visiting Cuba as you mark the anniversary of the great Cuban and Latin American hero, José Martí." - Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General, January 27, 2014

To witness a crime in silence is to commit it. - José Martí  

CELAC is underway today in Havana, Cuba on the birthday of José Martí and it is taking place in the midst of a nationwide crackdown on nonviolent dissidents. Furthermore, Gabriel Salvia, an Argentine national was stopped at the airport upon his arrival in Cuba and declared "persona non grata." He had planned to attend a parallel summit organized by dissidents. The main organizer of the gathering Cuesta Morua has been detained since Sunday and held by the political police. Dozens of other activists have been detained and others have had their homes laid siege and are effectively under house arrest.

From Cuba, the opposition activist Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina tweeted blindly: "The day of Marti for Cubans ends up an affront to the wave of repression unleashed by the regime against the peaceful resistance."

Regime agents beat Cuban woman with blunt object in 2012. UNSG Ki-Moon meets regime officials now

Unfortunately, the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, met with the oppressors and praised them for their work on violence against women.

Cuba is a leader on many development issues, including expanding opportunity for women and girls.  It has battled stereotypes and worked through its institutions to advance equality and prevent and end all forms of violence. [...] Since this threat is rooted in discrimination, impunity and complacency, we need to change attitudes and behavior – and we need to change laws and make sure they are enforced just like you are doing in Cuba.

The Secretary General is ignoring the well documented regular beatings visited on Cuban women who dissent from the official government line such as the Ladies in White and the Rosa Parks Women's Movement. On July 9, 2013 two dissident Cuban attorneys, Yaremis Flores and Laritza Diversent presented their report to Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, as it examined Cuba, that touches on the institutional violence against women:

The brutality of the police and state security agents, including women members of these bodies, against women dissidents, is supported by the state, which exemplifies the institutionalized violence as a means to repress women opposition activists. Arbitrary detention is one of the methods to prevent them from exercising their rights to speak, associate and demonstrate. In detention centers agents use violence, sexual assault and insults as means of repression. The cells enclosed in unsanitary and sometimes sanitary services have no privacy or are not appropriate for women, even having them share prison cells with men. In some cases, they forced to strip naked or forcibly stripped, obliging them to squat to see if they have items in their genitals and claims that have been reported that they have introduced a pen into the vagina, under the justification of seeking recording objects.
The government organizes in workplaces the so called Rapid Response Brigades (BRR) to suppress even with the use of violence women dissidents. It is the absolute government inaction regarding those involved in rallies of repudiation against the Ladies in White and other women opposition activists, acts against the public order, groups that gather to promote hatred against opponents of the government and advocate for socialist revolution, to which are added the media with smear campaigns against these women, who have no opportunity to exercise their right to reply.

This is not the vision of Cuba José Martí had in mind when he fought for Cuban independence over a century ago. In his work "Nuestra América" he warned against the rise of caudillo governments in Latin America that would perpetuate autocratic regimes in Latin America. Nor is the passive and silent acquiescence of international figures and Latin American leaders before massive human rights violations and a decades old tyranny perversely called a democracy the vision that the Cuban national hero had of Latin American unity.


José Julián Martí Pérez was born in Cuba 161 years ago today on January 28, 1853.  Fifty five years into a Stalinist dictatorship installed by the Castro brothers. Ironically, the Castros, who claim José Julián Martí as a revolutionary inspiration, are sons of a Spanish peninsular who came to Cuba to fight to preserve colonial rule, and later became a rich landowner.

If José Martí had been born and grown up under the Castro regime then he'd either be a martyr, such as Pedro Luis Boitel or Orlando Zapata Tamayo who died on hunger strike defending human dignity or an opposition leader murdered under suspicious circumstances such as Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas or Laura Inés Pollán. José Martí with his passion for freedom, justice and human dignity would have been a dissident protesting the totalitarian regime in Cuba. As a writer, poet, and orator who could appeal to large numbers of people who would have been perceived by the Castro brothers as a threat. 

His vision of the Cuba and the Americas he wanted to see and the critique of the CELAC Summit that he would have made are reflected in the words of Yoani Sanchez: An important challenge for the CELAC Summit is that respect for diversity not be "tolerance for authoritarians or human rights violations."

He would not remain silent. José Martí understood the importance of speaking out and the complicity of remaining silent before a crime. 

Amnesty International condemned the ongoing crackdown against nonviolent activists, including many women, by the Cuban government and called on the UN Secretary General and other dignitaries to address it:

It is outrageous that those who disagree with the Cuban government are not allowed to express themselves in a public and collective manner.  The heads of state of the CELAC member countries and the high officials of regional and international organizations, such as UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, should not ignore the fact that as they arrive in Havana to participate in the summit, Cuban activists are being repressed by their government.

Like Amnesty International Martí would've called on leaders to hold tyrants and dictators accountable and to make them uncomfortable in their repression.

 Instead UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon failed to address the crackdown publicly but instead met with Raul Castro to discuss in part how the US embargo impacts on human rights in Cuba and later his daughter, Mariela, where he celebrated the regime's treatment of women and finally met with Fidel Castro for 55 minutes.

Its enough, that if he were alive, it would bring José Martí  to tears.

World Youth Day for Democracy: October 18, 2010

"Commit yourself to the noble struggle for human rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country and a finer world to live in." - Martin Luther King, Jr.












Alexandra Joner (above left) Cuban-Norwegian girl (age 19) bitten by Cuban diplomat in Oslo. Above right brothers Nestor & Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina activists who have been detained, beaten and imprisoned for their human rights activism in Cuba.

The dictatorship in Cuba is run by elderly men in their 70s and 80s who distrust the youth of the country. They have diplomats that are not diplomatic that insult and bite Cuban youth in other countries. This is what they do in free countries where this behavior is unacceptable:



Imagine what they are doing to young people in Cuba. Thanks to twitter you don't have to and there is now a clearer idea of what goes on in real time. Imagine on a Friday afternoon while many young people are preparing for a night on the town others like Luis Felipe Rojas and Jose A Triguero find their homes surrounded by Cuban state security and under surveillance. Check out Luis Felipe's blog translated to English here.

Blogger Luis Felipe Rojas suffers detentions, harassment and state security surveillance in Cuba.

As Saturday approaches a Guantanamo family made up of Rogelio Tabio, his wife Rosaida Ramirez and their two children are subjected to days of physical violence and intimidation in an act of repudiation taking place at their home with over 500 people bussed in by the dictatorship. When young activists tried to demonstrate their solidarity with the victims of this repression they were detained.

Cuban youth leader Rolando R. Lobaina is detained in Santiago, Cuba at 8pm on a Saturday night by five Cuban state security G2 officials and his friends don't know where he is being held.

Signing a petition for human rights to be respected in Cuba or obtaining a scholarship to study at university abroad can get you expelled from school and subjected to a mob attack.

2009 WYMD regional essay contest winner from Cuba Cristian Toranzo denied by Cuban dictatorship permission to travel to World Movement for Democracy Assembly in Jakarta

Unlike most youth of the world young Cubans cannot travel the world freely but have to obtain the dictatorship's permission to enter and exit their own country. Cristian Toranzo was a 2009 Latin American regional winner for the World Youth Movement for Democracy essay contest and was not allowed to travel to attend the World Movement for Democracy in Jakarta, Indonesia unlike other winners from around the world. Please read Cristian's winning essay here which offers an insight into the thinking of a young Cuban activist in Cuba who has suffered beatings and detentions for his defense of human rights and democratic values.

On this World Youth Day for Democracy October 18, 2010 please take a moment out of your day to think about these brave youth confronting a totalitarian dictatorship.

Amnesty International Urgent Action - Cuba: 5 PRO-DEMOCRACY ACTIVISTS ARBITRARILY DETAINED

PRO-DEMOCRACY ACTIVISTS ARBITRARILY DETAINED

Five men, all members of a pro-democracy organization in Cuba have been detained in connection with their political beliefs and activities. They have been held by police since 12 August, and have not had access to a lawyer. It is unclear if they have been charged. They could be facing an unfair trial.

On 11 August, seven men, members of the organization Youth for Democracy (Jovenes por la Democracia), were holding a meeting at the home of one of their members, Nestor Rodríguez Lobaina, in the town of Baracoa, in Guantánamo province. Two of them, Yordis García Fournier and Eriberto Liranza Romero, went to find out about return tickets at the bus station, but were detained by police soon after leaving the house at around midday. They were held without charge until 16 August.

When the rest of the group at Nestor Rodríguez's home found out their two colleagues had been detained, they hung banners and posters outside the house protesting against their detention. Within a few hours, a group of supporters of the authorities had gathered outside the house, shouting insults and throwing stones, some of which hit members of Youth for Democracy. At around 3 pm, four more members of the organization arrived at the house. When they saw the mob outside the house, they decided to go in through the back door. There, they were questioned by state security agents and taken into detention. They were released two days later, on 13 August.

On 12 August, state security officials entered the house and detained all five members of Youth for Democracy who were there: Nestor Rodríguez Lobaina and his brother Rolando, Enyor Díaz Allen, Roberto González Pelegrín and Francisco Manzanet. They are still in detention and have not had access to a lawyer. They have been told that they will be charged with "public disorder" (“desorden público”), but it is not clear if charges have yet been filed against them. Once they are charged, they could be tried within hours. It appears their detention is politically motivated.

Roberto González Pelegrín and Francisco Manzanet have been on hunger strike since 12 August in protest at their detention, and are held at the provincial hospital in Guantánamo. According to relatives of Nestor Rodríguez, at 7 am on 13 August, state security officials returned to the house and searched it, even though they did not have a warrant to do so. They confiscated items including books, laptops and mobile phones. They spent 12 hours in the house.

PLEASE WRITE IMMEDIATELY in Spanish or your own language:

• urging the government to release Nestor and Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina, Enyor Díaz Allen, Roberto González Pelegrín and Francisco Manzanet immediately and unconditionally, unless they are to be charged with an internationally recognized criminal offence and tried according to international standards for fair trial;
• calling on the authorities to cease the harassment, intimidation and persecution of citizens who seek to peacefully exercise their right to freedom of expression, assembly and association.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 06 OCTOBER 2010 TO:

Head of State and Government
Raúl Castro Ruz
Presidente
La Habana, Cuba
Fax: +53 7 8333085 (via Foreign Ministry); +1 2127791697 (via Cuban Mission to UN)
Email: cuba@un.int (c/o Cuban Mission to UN)
Salutation: Su Excelencia/Your Excellency

Interior Minister
General Abelardo Coloma Ibarra
Ministro del Interior y Prisiones
Ministerio del Interior, Plaza de la Revolución, La Habana, Cuba
Fax: +53 7 8333085 (via Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
+1 2127791697 (via Cuban Mission to UN)
Salutation: Su Excelencia/Your Excellency

And copies to:
Ambassador
Mr José Luis Robaina García
Embassy of the Republic of Cuba, Wellington
PO Box 3294,
Wellington 6140
Fax: (04) 473 2958
Email: embajada@xtra.co.nz
Salutation: Your Excellency

Please check with the Urgent Action Team if sending appeals after the above date.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Freedom of assembly, association and expression in Cuba continues to be severely restricted and many arrests have taken place around commemorations of past events and demonstrations. The detentions last usually for few hours after which the detainee is released with a warning not to take part in any dissenting activities, or would otherwise face charges. Short term detention is commonly used by Cuban authorities as a method to intimidate citizens and to deter them from peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression, assembly and association.

For more information see:

- Restrictions on freedom of expression in Cuba, Report, Index Number: AMR 25/005/2010, 30 June 2010, at: http://bit.ly/9xnktZ

- Rock and repression in Cuba, Video, 7 July 2010, at:http://bit.ly/c5rtpl

UA: 186/10 Index: AMR 25/013/2010 Issue Date: 25 August 2010

http://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=552e2eef05687afb40af93bf8&id=e110b2b61d

Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy Members Request International Solidarity

Violent crackdown on Cuban youth activists in Baracoa, Cuba by Cuban State Security. A woman 8 months pregnant is strip searched and abused.

Brothers Néstor & Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina are 2 of the 5 detained activists.

Activists began hunger strike on August 12. There number will increase on Monday, August 23, the 6 month anniversary of Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s death

The anatomy of a crackdown in six parts:

Part I: Activists harassed and detained

Yordis García Fournier and Eriberto Liranza Linares, young activists of the Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy (MCJD), were arbitrarily detained on August 11, 2010 at 2:15pm by Castro regime State Security. Eriberto was visiting Baracoa from Havana. Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina, a leading activist in the Cuban resistance who heads the MCJD and witnessed the detention, insisted on accompanying the activists to where they were to be held.

"Several police officers intercepted us on the street when we were going to arrange Eriberto’s return to the capital. The two were grabbed off of the street... They were deposited in a cell in the [political police] barracks," described Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina.

Part II: Members of their movement gather to protest arbitrary detention and are attacked

Later on the evening of the same day, opposition activists gathered at the home of Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina, located at Calle Martí # 434, Apartment F, to protest the detention of Yordis and Eriberto. They unfurled a Cuban flag and anti-dictatorship posters on the balcony. In response, State Security and National Revolutionary Police called its officers and members of the paramilitary Rapid Response Brigades to counter the demonstration. Cuban State Security organized a mob to carry out an act of repudiation against the activists. Shouting obscenities and insults against the nonviolent activists, the regime agents escalated the attack and slung rocks and beer bottles at Nestor’s home, breaking windows. The Cuban flag was torn down.

“They’re attacking us with rocks that weigh more than two pounds and glass bottles. They’ve filled my house with glass. Two are injured,” said Nestor Rodríguez Lobaina.

Opposition activists Roberto González Pelegrín and Enyor Díaz Allen suffered the most bruises and cuts from the mob. Enyor suffered an injury to his chest. Also present at the protest were Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina, Francisco Luis Manzanet Ortiz, Oscar Savon Pantoja, Yuliesky Sánchez Rodríguez and Daneisy Gálvez Pereira. Daniesy is eight months pregnant.

Part III: Dictatorship rewards most aggressive rock and bottle throwers

"They attacked with stones and all sorts of objects at the home of nonviolent opposition activist Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina, causing me and other activists who were there bumps and serious bruises, along with severe damage to the house and broken blinds. Down on the street the famous Rapid Response Brigades, together with State Security and police officers, were waiting for an order from the Ministry of Interior to lynch the peaceful activists who responded with slogans against the regime. The actions of Mijailé and of Evangelio del Pino, the first sentenced to two years imprisonment for prostitution and the second a former police officer. […] Both were rewarded for their 'courageous and outstanding' participation in the act of repudiation by the Department of State Security with cheese, ham and cooking oil," stated activist Randy Caballero Suarez from Baracoa, condemning the attack.


Part IV: 5 Opposition activists detained for protesting detentions; a pregnant woman left traumatized

Activists Néstor and Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina, Enyor Díaz Allen, Francisco Luis Manzanet Ortiz and Roberto González Pelegrín were detained for “disturbing the peace.” “At this moment they are detained (in Guantánamo) at the Operations Unit. […] They told me that the charges have been passed on to the Prosecutor’s office and are accused of public disorder and that the prosecutor’s office would respond the day after tomorrow. This Thursday they said they would receive a response as to whether they would take measures of preventive imprisonment or some other precautionary measure,” informed Yanet Mosquera Cayón, Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina’s wife.

The Communist mob invaded and ransacked the home of Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina, located at Calle Martí # 434, Apartment F and strip searched his wife. Daneisy Gálvez Pereira is eight months pregnant and State Security agents performed a vaginal cavity search on her in the course of their strip search. The trauma of the event has placed her pregnancy in danger of miscarriage.

Enyor was attacked and beaten with a heavy rock to force him to let go of the Cuban flag hanging on the balcony as members of the mob sought to drag it down from the floor below. The heavy blow from the rock to his chest caused him to release the flag. Gonzalez Pelegrin was injured by one of the flying projectiles.


Part V: Three of the detained activists have been on hunger strike for seven days.


Pelegrin was transferred from his prison cell to the Guantanamo provincial hospital on Wednesday August 18, 2010 suffering from dehydration. Roberto González Pelegrín, Francisco Luis Manzanet Ortiz, y Enyor Díaz Allen have been on hunger strike since Thursday, August 12, 2010.

Part VI: Activist leaders set August 23 as the date to launch a hunger strike demanding freedom

Yordis García Fournier and Eriberto Liranza Linares, whose detention sparked the protest that led to the detention of the others, were themselves released days later. Eriberto Liranza Linares was taken from the Guantanamo Operations Unit to Havana on Saturday, August 14, 2010 and released there. The police confiscated all his belongings, his cell phone among them, and never returned them.

Yordis García Fournier was present in the prison cells at State Security headquarters when the newly detained activists were being held and upon his release on Monday, August 16, 2010 and reported the decision of the activists to initiate a hunger strike on August 23 if they are not freed by that date.

“While I was detained, I communicated with the leader of the Cuban Youth for Democracy Movement (Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina) and he himself told me that if on Monday he were not freed as a State Security official had personally told him, they would go on an indefinite hunger strike and that he was seconded by his brother Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina and the others that are still hostages of the Havana regime. I emphasize this and at the same time I issue a call for solidarity with the Rodríguez Lobaina brothers and the other brothers-in-the-struggle held in that unfortunate situation.

The Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy, the Eastern Democratic Alliance and the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Civic Resistance & Civil Disobedience Front demand that the Cuban government and State Security release them immediately,” stated Yordis García Fournier.

Text and information provided by the Cuban Democratic Directorate