Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) gathers 10,000 signatures in Cuba for the freedom of its leader Eduardo Cardet

State Security intercepts and arrests Rosa María Rodríguez #RosaMariaMCL when she was going to deliver them to the State Council.
 

Eduardo Cardet Concepción and Rosa María Rodríguez Gil

Translated from the MCL website with minor changes.

Yesterday, April 5, Rosa María Rodríguez Gil, member of the Coordinating Council of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL), went with her husband, Alejandro Febles, to the Council of State to deliver 10,000 signatures for the freedom of Eduardo Cardet, leader of the MCL currently in prison.Several State Security agents detained them and seized the signatures. [Rosa and Alejandro were held for 24 hours.]

During the interrogations, the agents wanted to obtain information on how it had been possible for the MCL to have been able to collect such a large number of signatures in such a short time, signatures that include the name and identity number of the citizens, exercising the legal right to make petitions proceeded to join that campaign 
Rosa María Rodríguez demanded the return of the signatures, the agents refused, so she asked them to give her a document stating that the Cuban Government through State Security was in possession of said signatures.

Rosa plans, once the "new government" is formed, to go to the corresponding institution to explain that this petition of 10,000 citizens is in the hands of the state. 
She and her husband were released today April 6 at 10 am, throughout the night their family was not informed of their whereabouts.

Carlos Payá, over twitter, thanked the 371 outside of Cuba who had signed the petition  and the 10,000 who signed the petition inside the island requesting Cardet's release. 

You can still sign the petition here. 

Listen to Rosa María explain the events in Spanish:  20180406 Rosa Maria Rodriguez signatures for Cardet.

Background
Eduardo Cardet Concepción, successor to martyred founding leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, Oswaldo Paya, and unjustly jailed since November 30, 2016 was badly beaten, subjected to a political show trial, sentenced to three years in prison on March 20, 2017, and stabbed twice by three prisoners on December 19, 2017. This attack was most probably engineered by Castro's State Security in order to permanently silence him. The seriousness of the attack was only learned on January 15, 2018 when his wife was finally able to visit him in prison and see the extent of his injuries.  His health has been worsening and he has been refused religious assistance. It is feared that an injury on Eduardo Cardet's nose may require surgery because it could be cancer.

Over 300 detained on Human Rights Day and a focus on two taken away

Two people behind the numbers and the images coming out of Cuba

Independent journalist Lázaro Yuri Valle after Embassy of Ecuador

Reports still emerging from Cuba on the total number of arrests on International Human Rights Day with estimates now ranging at over 300 Cuban activists detained.  However in this blog entry will focus on two detainees, Rosa María Rodríguez Gil and Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca, out of the hundreds taken. She has a story that is compelling and he appears in a series of powerful images that speak volumes on the nature of the regime that presently exists in Cuba.

Rosa María Rodríguez Gil with her son Yosvani in 2015

Rosa María Rodríguez Gil, a member of the coordinating council of the Christian Liberation Movement was detained on December 10, 2015 at 8:00am  and was released the following day on December 11 at 4:00pm amid threats and insults hurled at her by state security agents. She spoke before the United Nations Human Rights Council on June 25, 2015.

Rosa María Rodríguez addresses UNHRC with Regis Iglesias

Rosa Maria had been threatened on March 16, 2010 that if she did not begin informing on the Christian Liberation Movement, a nonviolent movement that seeks a democratic transition in Cuba, that her learning disabled son, Yosvani Melchor Rodríguez, would suffer the consequences. She refused and Yosvani was arrested on March 19, 2010 and held in custody for nine months then subjected to a show trial and given a 12 year prison sentence. In Geneva she denounced this blackmail along with the deaths of Christian Liberation Movement founder Oswaldo Payá, and its youth leader Harold Cepero on July 22, 2012 under suspicious circumstances that have not been cleared up. Five years, five months and 12 days after he was arbitrarily detained Yosvani Melchor Rodriguez was freed on probation on August 30, 2015.  

Independent journalist Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca

Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca is an independent journalist and social communicator who lives in Havana, Cuba and has a blog of opinion about the political and social reality titled YurielConteston Blog. He posted the photograph above on November 30, 2015 after being roughed up by Castro agents at the Embassy of Ecuador in Havana when he was covering a story on Cuban nationals protesting the change in visa policy.


On International Human Rights Day he was surrounded by Cuban state security agents who covered his mouth in order to silence him as they took him away. Towards the end of the video below you can see him taken away and how other elements use the flags to try and cover up what is going on. However, other media in the vicinity captured the following images which have been pieced together. Cuban state security agents tried to silence Lázaro on December 10th but the photos that others took speak volumes on the repressive and totalitarian nature of the Cuban government in 2015.

Int'l Human Rights Day 2015 in Havana

 These are but two of the over 300 hundred activists detained today in Cuba for their exercise of free expression and independent journalism. This is not normal and demonstrates a totalitarian regime that fears its populace and maintains control through a combination of fear and physical coercion.

Christian Liberation Movement members harassed and detained in Cuba during Papal visit

Sunday night and the repression continues in Cuba against activists

Yordan Marino (left) and Eduardo Cardet (right) of MCL

Eduardo Cardet, the national coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL), harassed by Rapid Response Brigade and MCL member Yordan Marino arrested in Holguín tonight. The Christian Liberation Movement is a Catholic lay movement founded on September 8, 1988.

Rosa María Rodríguez of MCL arrested this morning

Earlier in the day Rosa María Rodríguez,  a member of the Coordinating council of the Christian Liberation Movement was detained at 7:00am while on her way to the Papal Mass being celebrated in Havana. She was freed at 12 noon by the police who sought to stop her attending the religious service.

State Security agents watching MCL Council coordinator  Armando Peña

Armando Peña, MCL Council coordinator had plainclothes state security agents monitoring his home in Las Tunas, Cuba and managed to get a photo of the repressors.

Prior to the Pope's arrivial in Cuba the Christian Liberation Movement leaders in the diaspora, Regis Iglesias Ramírez and Michele Trota, in an open letter to His Holiness Pope Francis asked, in part, for the following:  

As a pilgrim of the Truth we humbly ask you when you arrive in Cuba to especially embrace those Cubans who are in prison for the sake of justice, those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, those who work for peace, freedom and justice. Send Your Blessing to all Cubans who from the diaspora pray and work for the rights of the human person, reconciliation and progress of our people so that we can return to our beloved island after the painful exile to which we have been subjected to precisely due to the pursuit of justice, the defense of hope and the popular sovereignty of Cubans.

On Sunday evening the Vatican confirmed that they had invited dissidents to events in Cuba where they would meet Pope Francis but wouldn't confirm arrests. 

Yosvani Melchor Rodriguez on conditonal release after 1991 days of arbitrary detention

"Finally with his family after 5 years of unjust imprisonment Yosvani Melchor on probation. Enough blackmail end the impunity."  - Rosa María Payá

Yosvani Melchor Rodriguez, unjustly detained

 Five years, five months and 12 days after he was arbitrarily detained Yosvani Melchor Rodriguez was freed on probation on August 30, 2015. He should not have spent one day in jail and has suffered in order to make his mother suffer for not agreeing to become an informant for the Castro regime's state security services against the Christian Liberation Movement. 

Last month on June 24, 2015 Rosa María Rodríguez Gil addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva and called for the release of her son, Yosvani Melchor Rodriguez, unjustly imprisoned since March 19, 2010. In her statement she outlined the circumstances that led to his arbitrary detention:

My name is Rosa Maria Rodriguez Gil, I am a member of the Coordinating Council of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) and I live in Havana, Cuba. For my activism and commitment to the MCL ... because I refused to collaborate with the Cuban political police, my son Yosvani Melchor Rodriguez, a young man with psychological problems, was arbitrarily arrested, subjected to a show trial, where the prosecution was unable to demonstrate evidence of an alleged crime of trafficking in persons that he did not commit, they sanctioned him to 12 years in prison and he has spent 5 years in the prisons of Cuba. My son is being punished as a vendetta for my participation in the civic and constitutional campaign for a referendum where the people can freely decide whether if they want democracy. Not content to kidnap my son, the Cuban authorities denied Yosvani even the right to parole, that all inmate has on the island once they have passed the half way point of the sanction imposed, in this case unjustly. 

Oswaldo Payá died in a suspicious car accident on July 22, 2012 along with another member of his movement, Harold Cepero, but months earlier in an interview with the Associated Press he addressed this case:

"There are political prisoners in Cuba; the son of a member of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) was sentenced to 12 years in jail for the sole reason of being the son of a MCL member. His name is Yosvany Melchor Rodriguez and he was artificially condemned in Santiago de Cuba on November 30, 2010, after his mother was threatened by state security forces for not wanting to cooperate against us."

 It is important to celebrate Yosvani's freedom and continue to demand that his freedom not be conditional. Furthermore, it is important to remember the circumstances under which this young man was denied his liberty in order to terrorize his mother into spying on a nonviolent dissident organization. 

Yosvani Melchor Rodriguez together with his mom

Cuban mother denounces her disabled son's unjust imprisonment as blackmail by Cuban regime

"There are political prisoners in Cuba; the son of a member of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) was sentenced to 12 years in jail for the sole reason of being the son of a MCL member."- Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, September 23, 2011 interview

Rosa María Rodríguez Gil addresses the UNHRC in Geneva

One day a secret policemen approached Rosa María Rodríguez Gil and demanded that she become an informant spying on other members of the human rights group of which she is  a member. She rejected their offer saying that she would not be subjected to blackmail. They warned her that her learning disabled son, Yosvani Melchor Rodríguez, would pay. Three days later he was arrested on March 19, 2010 and held in custody for nine months then subjected to a show trial and given a 12 year prison sentence. 

Rosa responded by denouncing the blackmail and demanding the immediate release of her innocent son. Two years later and her son is still unjustly imprisoned and international attention draws some attention to his plight. Early one morning her sister, Dalia Margarita Rodríguez, who is a cancer survivor, gets a phone call they ask her if she is related to  Rosa and they ask Dalia her son's name. She answered all their questions truthfully and then they tell her to talk to Rosa and to take care of her son or that he would end up the same way.

 
Now more than five years after his arrest on June 24, 2015 with her son still in prison, Rosa María Rodríguez Gil addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva and called for her son's freedom denouncing Yosvani's unjust imprisonment. In the video above beginning at 2:28:20 you can watch what transpired and below is a transcript of her statement before the Council:

Thank you very much Mr. Chairman,

My name is Rosa Maria Rodriguez Gil, I am a member of the Coordinating Council of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) and I live in Havana, Cuba.

For my activism and commitment to the MCL and Oswaldo Payá, who with Harold Cepero died in circumstances that have not been cleared up; because I refused to collaborate with the Cuban political police, my son Yosvani Melchor Rodriguez, a young man with psychological problems, was arbitrarily arrested, subjected to a show trial, where the prosecution was unable to demonstrate evidence of an alleged crime of trafficking in persons that he did not commit, they sanctioned him to 12 years in prison and he has spent 5 years in the prisons of Cuba.

My son is being punished as a vendetta for my participation in the civic and constitutional campaign for a referendum where the people can freely decide whether if they want democracy.

Not content to kidnap my son, the Cuban authorities denied Yosvani even the right to parole, that all inmate has on the island once they have passed the half way point of the sanction imposed, in this case unjustly.

I come before this honorable forum to ask for justice and that my son Yosvani Melchor Rodriguez be released immediately, that the blackmail and threats against me and against all Cubans who peacefully work for human rights and real change to democracy with the people's participation cease.

Thank you very much.

In an interview on the same day with Radio República she described how the dictatorship's diplomat interrupted her, along with several anti-democratic states, questioning her credentials when she addressed the Council and how she was able to finish her statement. Rosa María also recalled how others in the council chamber approached her to express their admiration for her courage, some taking pictures with her.

Unjustly imprisoned: Yosvani Melchor

State Security surround MCL member's home to prevent protest in Cuba's Revolution Square

State Security surround home of Rosa Rodriguez of MCL to prevent her approaching Revolution Square on January 6, 2013

Cuban mom's home surrounded to prevent her showing poster calling for son's freedom

At 12:07pm on January 6, 2014 Rosa María Payá Acevedo tweeted: "Four years ago state security abducted Rosa M Rodriguez and threatened to jail her son Yosvani Melchor if she didn't leave the Christian Liberation Movement." 

According to a statement published the same day with the above photo over Facebook by the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL), State Security agents of the Cuban economic-military junta kept the home of MCL member, Rosa Rodriguez, surrounded on January 6, 2014. She had wanted to approach Revolution Square with a poster calling for the release of her young and mentally challenged son, Yosvany Melchor, who has unjustly been suffering imprisonment since June 2010.  


The Cuban Gestapo has told Yosvany's mother that while she remains a member of the MCL, her child will not be free.

Yosvany was detained in June of 2010 and sentenced in a politicized show trial on November 30, 2010 after his mother refused to become an informant for state security. The martyred dissident, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, in a September 23, 2011 response to an Associated Press interview in which he addressed this case:

"There are political prisoners in Cuba; the son of a member of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) was sentenced to 12 years in jail for the sole reason of being the son of a MCL member. His name is Yosvany Melchor Rodriguez and he was artificially condemned in Santiago de Cuba on November 30, 2010, after his mother was threatened by state security forces for not wanting to cooperate against us."

Cuba under the Castro brothers is a communist totalitarian regime in which families are targeted and the loved ones of dissidents are used as hostages.

End the Silence: Stand with Women in Cuba for Their Rights

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) examined Cuba today during its 55th session at the Palais des Nations in Conference Room XVI in Geneva, Switzerland. There was no mention, not even a question raised, of the Cuban government's agents engaging and organizing others in a systematic pattern of death threats, assaults, and rape threats against Cuban women in order to silence their dissent. Women in Cuba have been and continue to be imprisoned, badly beaten, mutilated, threatened with rape and extra-judicially executed by a government that some claim is pro-women in order to deny them their fundamental human rights. How can this be going on and CEDAW not mention it?

Yaremis Flores and Laritza Diversent presented report to CEDAW

 There was one ray of light amidst the depressing news and that was that two dissident Cuban attorneys Yaremis Flores and Laritza Diversent presented their report to CEDAW that touches on the institutional violence against women, and this is now part of the official record:

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.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here are eight cases that deserve CEDAW's attention:

Rosa María Rodríguez Gil

One day a secret policemen approached Rosa María Rodríguez Gil and demanded that she become an informant spying on other members of the human rights group of which she is  a member. She rejected their offer saying that she would not be subjected to blackmail. They warned her that her learning disabled son, Josvany Melchor Rodríguez, would pay. Three days later he was arrested on March 19, 2010 and held in custody for nine months then subjected to a show trial and given a 12 year prison sentence. Rosa responded by denouncing the blackmail and demanding the immediate release of her innocent son. Two years pass and her son is still unjustly imprisoned and international attention draws some attention to his plight. Early one morning her sister, Dalia Margarita Rodríguez, who is a cancer survivor, gets a phone call they ask her if she is related to  Rosa and they ask Dalia her son's name. She answered all their questions truthfully and then they tell her to talk to Rosa and to take care of her son or that he would end up the same way.  

Rosa Maria Payá Acevedo and Ofelia Acevedo

 Rosa Maria Payá Acevedo: "There, as in Madrid, we have been reminded that the death threats received by my father were made concrete on July 22, 2012 and requested support to investigate his death and the death of my friend Harold Cepero. We left behind a statement being signed by those attending the summit explicitly requesting support for an investigation to clarify what happened. The truth is essential, for justice, as a way for true reconciliation, but also as a warning, because death threats have now extended to all my family and the repression increases against members of the MCL and the entire opposition." Both women are currently in exile as political refugees due to the death threats and harassment from the government.

Sonia Garro

More than a year after her detention the Lady in White, Sonia Garro, is being held at "El Guatao" prison and is regularly receiving death threats. Amnesty International reported that "Lady in White Sonia Garro Alfonso, and her husband, Ramón Alejandro Muñoz González, were arrested at their home in Havana [on March 18, 2012]: around 50 police forced their way into the house and fired rubber bullets at them. According to her sister, Sonia Garro Alfonso was wounded in the foot by one of these bullets." In the same document it is revealed that "Sonia Garro Alfonso was suffering a kidney problem before her arrest that may require surgery. " Because she took part in a march on Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 23rd Avenue in Havana with a makeshift banner that read: "Down With Racism & Long Live Human Rights" she was detained by police for seven hours and badly beaten. Sonia Garro Alfonso suffered a fracture of the nasal septum and other injuries reported by the EFE newswire.

 

Yris Perez Aguilera

 Yris Perez , Damarys Moya ,Yanisbel Valido, Natividad Blanco and Ramona Garcia were beaten and arrested in Santa Clara for marching on March 7, 2013.  Yris Perez Aguilera had been beaten so badly that she lost consciousness and had to be admitted to a hospital. When she regained consciousness despite still being in a bad state she was discharged on orders of State Security. Due to the multiple beatings she has received from government agents Yris Perez Aguilera has developed a cyst on the top of the spine where it meets her head.  She frequently suffers migraines, dizziness spells and other sharp pains due to the repeated attacks which she has not been able to tend to medically. The man who assaulted Yris on March 7, 2013 is Eric Francis Aquino Yera, the same official who, in 2012, threatened to rape the 5 year old daughter of Damaris Moya- Lazara Contreras.

Marina Montes Piñón

 Marina Montes Piñón, a 60 year old woman and long time opposition activist, was beaten with a blunt object by regime agents on December 15, 2012 in Cuba. The end result was three deep wounds in the skull and a hematoma in the right eye. She needed nearly thirty stitches to patch up the wounds.

Berenice Héctor González

 Berenice Héctor González, a 15-year old young woman, suffered a knife attack on November 4, 2012 for supporting the women's human rights movement, The Ladies in White. News of the attack only emerged a month later because State Security had threatened the mother that her daughter would suffer the consequences if she made the assault public.

Damaris Moya Portieles and her daughter

Human rights activist and member of the Rosa Parks Movement for Civil Rights, Damaris Moya Portieles, denounced on  May 3rd 2012 that in addition to having been the victim of a violent arrest along with other dissidents the previous night, State Security and political police agents threatened to rape her 5 year old daughter. According to Portieles, the main culprit of this threat was the State Security agent Eric Francis Aquino Yera.

Laura Inés Pollán Toledo

 Laura Inés Pollán Toledo, one of the founders of the Ladies in White in March of 2003 and its chief spokeswoman was widely admired inside of Cuba and internationally. She fell suddenly ill and died within a week on October 14, 2011 in a manner that a Cuban medical doctor described as "painful, tragic and unnecessary." This was just days after the Ladies in White declared themselves a human rights organization dedicated to the freedom of all political prisoners, not just their loved ones.

Women are dying in Cuba for defending their fundamental human rights using nonviolent means. Will the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) speak for them? Will you?

Life in a totalitarian society: A thought experiment

Empathy: n. 1. Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives.

Mother and Son

 A thought experiment.

You are a human rights defender in a totalitarian country. You are also a mother, a wife, and a sister.

You have a grown son who his entire life has been mentally challenged but has a love for working on mechanical things.

One day secret policemen come to you and demand that you become an informant spying on other members of the human rights group of which you are a member. You reject their offer saying that you will not be subjected to blackmail.

They warn you that your son will pay.

Three days later he is arrested and held in custody for nine months and then subjected to a show trial and given a 12 year prison sentence.

You respond by denouncing the blackmail and demanding the immediate release of your innocent son.

Two years pass and your son is still unjustly imprisoned and international attention draws some attention to his plight.

Early one morning your sister, who is a cancer survivor, gets a phone call they ask her if she is related to you and they ask you her son's name. You answer all their questions truthfully and then they tell you to talk to your sister and take care of your son or he will wind up the same way.

Unfortunately, this "though experiment" is a reality for Rosa María Rodríguez Gil, her son Josvany Melchor Rodríguez and her sister Dalia Margarita Rodríguez. They are victims of the totalitarian dictatorship in Cuba that is now engaged in such repressive and threatening actions.

Oswaldo Payá died in a suspicious car accident on July 22, 2012 along with another member of his movement, Harold Cepero, but months earlier in an interview with the Associated Press he addressed this case:

"There are political prisoners in Cuba; the son of a member of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) was sentenced to 12 years in jail for the sole reason of being the son of a MCL member. His name is Yosvany Melchor Rodriguez and he was artificially condemned in Santiago de Cuba on November 30, 2010, after his mother was threatened by state security forces for not wanting to cooperate against us."

The question that should be gnawing at you after reading all this: What can I do? 

 If you want some answers than leave a comment and you will get a response.