International Human Rights Day 2014 and the Enduring Legacy of Dr. Ricardo Bofill

"I can't understand the hatred towards me. Because, really in the only field I’ve done battle, is the field of ideas." - Dr. Ricardo Bofill, 1987 in Nobody Listened documentary

International Human Rights Day in Cuba 2014 and men and women in Cuba continue to be arbitrarily detained, harassed and beaten for peacefully demonstrating in favor of human rights. Thanks to courageous activists across the island the world learned about these injustices today via twitter moments after the repression unfolded and at the same time the nonviolent actions of nonviolent opposition and human rights activists. Here is a brief sampling of some of those voices:

Sayli Navarro reported tonight that "in Colon 5  Ladies in White gathered together where Caridad Burunate  lives and handed out copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Angel Juan Moya at 8pm described over twitter how today, on December 10th, police beat Lady in White Adisnidia Dallet with a pistol while arresting her. He attached the above photo.

At 5:14pm the Ladies in White reported that the latest news was that hundreds had been detained and their counterparts abroad posted a press release.

Yoani Sanchez reported at 3:21pm over twitter that "police arrested and warned 14 y medio reporters for 'doing something illegal' ... but [Yoani exclaimed] they are doing journalism!"

 Rosa María Payá Acevedo at 1:24pm over twitter provided the context for what was taking place: "December 10th will go down in history as the day of State Security brutality. This is how the Government makes a mockery of human rights in Cuba."

At 12:36pm today the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) tweeted that "communist hordes assaulted the home of Elder Perez, of MCL in Majibacoa and beat up his wife who is pregnant."

Via telephone the Cuban Democratic Directorate today documented numerous demonstrations taking place across the island and also interviewed Sonia Garro who was sent home yesterday after spending two years, eight months and 22 days along with her husband and neighbor arbitrarily detained and is currently under house arrest. None of the three activists have undergone a judicial proceeding.

Ricardo Bofill, Cuban human rights pioneer

Regis Iglesias, spokesperson of the Christian Liberation Movement at 1:40pm over twitter posted a picture of Ricardo Bofill with the text: "Honoring honor. Ricardo Bofill, an essential reference in the defense of  Human Rights of Cubans."

These courageous activists are the disciples of Dr. Ricardo Bofill. Dr. Ricardo Bofill along with Martha Frayde and Eddy Lopez founded the Cuban Committee for Human Rights in 1976. In 1987, Nobody Listened, the documentary directed by Néstor Almendros and Jorge Ulla first introduced the world to Ricardo Bofill and the nonviolent human rights movement in this video.

Later in the same documentary, in the video above,  Dr. Bofill is interviewed and discusses his circumstances as a dissident in Cuba engaged in the battle of ideas:

"I can't understand the hatred towards me. Because, really in the only field I’ve done battle, is the field of ideas. In this field I’ve had no response just prison and the police. And I don’t know why because the revolution controls all mass media. They have editorials, journalists, even many writers in the world. I don’t know why the response, time and again, has been jail. The response should come in the field I fight in, with ideas. I was arrested again in 1983. On that occasion, I was sentenced to 17 years in jail accused of activities in the Cuban Committee for Human Rights and the last period of prison began. For reasons of health and others I know not of in 1985 I was placed in the status I’m now in which is “conditional liberty with restriction of movement.”

 Following the interview with Bofill in an interview with Fidel Castro the name of the human rights defender is raised. Castro dismisses his importance, but it is obvious in the context of the interview that he knows very well who this lone activist is.  Bofill went into exile and the leadership of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights passed to Gustavo Arcos who died of natural causes in 2006, but remains an icon of the Cuban human rights movement.

What started in 1976 as three activists based in Havana, in and out of prison, is now 38 years later a nationwide movement of thousands who are nonviolently engaged in the battle of ideas and the defense of human rights. Today's repression across the island continues to demonstrate that the Castro regime is terrified of them.

Repression unleashed in Cuba while the world looks elsewhere

While the world focuses on events in Hong Kong and in the Middle East the dictatorship in Cuba heightens its repression and carries out political show trials with relative impunity.

Cuban rapper faces unjust 7 year prison sentence

 According to Diario de Cuba the trial of Cuban dissident rapper Ángel Yunier Remón Arzuaga (The Critic) and three other activists for the alleged crime of "harming state security", concluded in the Provincial Court of Granma with the prosecution requesting seven years in prison.  The same number of years requested for Alexander Otero, six for  Rubisnel Villavicencio, and five years of house arrest for the Lady in White Yaquelín García Jaen, Martí Noticias reported Yudisbel Roselló, wife of "The Critic."

Sonia Garro and her husband on trial October 21, 2014

 The Castro regime announced it would place Sonia Garro, her husband Ramon A Muñoz and another involved on trial on October 21, 2014 reported  Ivan Hernández Carrillo over twitter on October 3, 2014.

The blog Uncommon Sense reports Cuban prosecutors are seeking a five-year prison sentence for opposition activist Ciro Alexis Casanova Pérez, after he ignored a house arrest and went out on the streets to protest against the Castro dictatorship.

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?

Mothers Day in Cuba: Cuban Women Defy Government Repression

"We are not going to stop. If they have imprisoned our sisters thinking that we would give up, they are mistaken." - Laura Pollán

Ladies in White march on Mother's Day despite repression in honor of Laura Pollán, along with Laura's widower, former prisoner of conscience Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez

On Mothers Day in Cuba the Ladies in White,  paid tribute to Laura Pollán, one of the founders of the organization who died under mysterious circumstances on October 14, 2011. Despite threats, harassment, and scores of women detained by State Security 68 Ladies in White following mass walked through Fifth Avenue in the west of Havana. They marched and chanted Viva Laura Pollán!" and "Freedom for the political prisoners!"

Literary Tea on Saturday in Havana

Berta Soler, the current leader of the Ladies in White, described how the homage for Laura Pollán began the day before on Saturday with a literary tea at the home of the deceased founding leader. The home located in central Havana, thanks to Laura's widower, has now been turned into the organization's  headquarters. She also described how the regime had organized a "party" for Mothers Day on Saturday just outside of the home to disrupt their activity describing it as a provocation.


Video from Pedazos de la Isla

More sinisterly scores of members of the Ladies in White were taken by State Security into detention their whereabouts unknown over the past week and including today. Sara Marta Fonseca managed to tweet at 8:48am on Mothers Day: "They take me away detained." This latest wave of detentions started days ago, in anticipation of Mothers Day.

 Ladies in White marching on Sunday

Jose Daniel Ferrer tweeted on Friday, May 11 that  Ladies in White, Alina Fonseca and Milagros Leyva were still jailed in Santiago de Cuba for attempting to travel to Havana. Alina had been detained since May 7, 2012. On May 8, 2012 Jose Daniel reported that a Major in State Security (G2) going by the name "Dorky" told various Ladies in White that they would only allow five of them to arrive in Havana for the Mothers Day activities. State Security mounted an operation to harass, block and detain women trying to leave to Havana to join up with the Ladies in White. Nevertheless 23 women arrived in Havana from Santiago to take part in the activities.

Later today, tweets appeared concerning some of the women who had been detained and were left by State Security up to 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) from their homes to find their way back in a country in which it is notoriously difficult to get around.  The names of two subjected to this mistreatment were tweeted by Hablemos Press: Sandra Guerra and Claribel Rodriguez.

The treatment of Cuban women under the Castro regime has been and continues to be shameful. On May 3rd a Cuban mother was threatened over several hours by thugs, instigated by State Security, that her 5 year old daughter would be raped.

It is also important to remember that Cuban mothers are spending Mothers Day in prison for defending the human rights of the Cuban people. Two of them: Sonia Garro and Niurka Luque have been in prison since March 2012.  Cuban mothers are forging the path to a free Cuba one step at a time walking for their children's freedom.

The Castro Regime May Be the Most Anti-Women Government in Latin America

Reading the article by Luisita Lopez Torregrosa, "Cuba May Be the Most Feminist Country in Latin America" in the International Herald Tribune on May 1, 2012, raises a number of questions.



Cuban female icon, Laura Inés Pollán Toledo, who could have been a future president of a democratic Cuba, died under mysterious circumstances on October 14, 2011 interviewed above prior to her untimely death.

Between 1959 and the present date the Castro brothers have ruled Cuba in the longest lasting dictatorship in Latin America. The Cuban parliament has no real power other than to rubber stamp the decisions of the Castro brothers. Meanwhile throughout Latin America women have been elected to the presidency of their respective countries: In Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner entered office on December 10, 2007; In Brazil, Dilma Rousseff was elected on October 31, 2010; In Chile, Michelle Bachelet was elected on March 11, 2006; In Costa Rica, Laura Chinchilla Miranda was elected on May 8, 2010; In Nicaragua Violeta Chamorro entered office on April 25, 1990. How can one claim that women have a greater level of political participation in government if they have no political power and are, like their male counterparts, rubber stamping decisions by the Castro brothers?

The statistics that place women in high percentages in the professions and technical workers fails to look at the context in Cuba where these professions do not pay a living wage. In the 2004 book, After Castro: Legacies, Challenges, and Impediments, Edward Gonzalez reports on page18 that “Education has become superfluous. Teachers, doctors and other professionals have abandoned their peso-dominated, low paying careers in the state sector to earn dollars as taxi-drivers, small entrepreneurs, hustlers and prostitutes.” In a July 11, 1992 speech, Fidel Castro sought to put the best spin possible on a terrible situation stating:

"There are no women forced to sell themselves to a man, to a foreigner, to a tourist. Those who do so do it on their own, voluntarily, and without any need for it. We can say that they are highly educated hookers and quite healthy, because we are the country with the lowest number of AIDS cases. There are nearby countries which have tens of thousands of AIDS cases. Therefore, there is truly no tourism healthier than Cuba's."

The jobs sought after in Cuba are the ones that place Cubans in contact with foreigners with hard currency. Professionals in the state sector depending on pesos literally go hungry. That a majority of them are women is tragic. Considering this reality how can one view as an advance the choices left to women in the socialist Cuban economy?

2 Ladies in White currently imprisoned in Cuba: Niurka Luque Alvarez (Left) and Sonia Garro Alfonso (Right)

Finally, the plight of women who attempt to exercise real political power and an authentic voice demonstrates that the dictatorship is both violent and patriarchal. Independent women's organizations such as the Ladies in White have been repeatedly physically assaulted by Cuban government agents. This movement founded in March of 2003 following a regime crackdown on nonviolent opponents forced the dictatorship to the negotiating table in 2010. The founding leader of this movement, Laura Inés Pollán Toledo, who could have been a future president of a democratic Cuba, died under mysterious circumstances on October 14, 2011. Other women have been repeatedly beaten up, brutalized and threatened with rape to  dissuade them from participating in the political and social life of the country. How on Earth can this be considered pro-woman?

Two Ladies in White are currently in prison for their nonviolent activities in defense of human rights. They have suffered beatings and mistreatment. Their names are Sonia Garro Alfonso and Niurka Luque Alvarez. Niurka has epilepsy and is suffering numerous epileptic attacks because prison officials refuse to provide her with medication to stop the attacks and also do not permit family members to give her the needed medicine. Why do women's experts remain silent when women are being mistreated?



Finally, the name of Walter Duranty immediately came to mind. It is important to point out that The International Herald Tribune is the global edition of The New York Times. Although it may be on a smaller scale history repeats itself at the Grey Lady. Eight decades ago Walter Duranty, an employee of the New York Times assisted in covering up the crimes of Josef Stalin. He was The New York Times's man in Moscow. To avoid being expelled from the Soviet Union, he regurgitated Stalinist propaganda and downplayed the atrocities taking place there. Duranty received the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 and only decades later would the world finally learn the truth that more than 10 million people had died in a genocide in the Ukraine despite the efforts of the New York Times reporter in covering it up. Although Stalin's surviving victims sought to have the prize revoked, the Pulitzer Prize board refused to do it.

Today, in Cuba although thankfully the body count is smaller than Josef Stalin's it is still rising and lamentably the defenders of another tyrant continue to extol the virtues of the dictatorship while ignoring or denigrating the victims. Unfortunately, the Duranty legacy is alive and well in the American media. Guess that answers a lot of the previously raised questions.

Cuban Women in solidarity with Cuba's Ladies in White Brutalized by Regime Police

Beaten by police while in their custody over 7 hours with bones broken

Sonia Garro

Sonia Garro and Mercedes Fresneda carried out a march on Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 23rd Avenue in Havana with a sheet with the inscription "Down With Racism & Long Live Human Rights" when they were detained by police. 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 reported the EFE newswire.

Mercedes Fresneda

Spokeswomen for the Ladies in White Laura Pollán and Berta Soler, denounced the incident that occurred against Sonia Garro Alfonso and Mercedes Fresneda Castillo, of the group of the "Ladies in Support"[Damas de apoyo] stating that it demonstrates racism against black women.

This is not the first time the charge of racism has been raised with reference to the dictatorship in Cuba. In 2009 prominent African Americans made public an open letter in support of the civil rights struggle in Cuba in large part responding to Afro-Brazilian scholar and historical leader of the black movement in Brazil Abdias Nascimento who denounced racism in Cuba demanding the release of Afro-Cuban civil rights leader Darsi Ferrer. Rather than accept the criticism and mend its ways the regime responded with a counter-campaign.

The death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a Cuban of African descent and an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience like Darsi Ferrer, on February 23, 2010 exposed the brutality of the Castro regime and its disparate treatment of Cuban's of African descent who are human rights defenders. Sadly, with the assaults against Sonia and Mercedes the pattern of discrimination and repression continue. The international community needs to demand that the police officers that beat this women be held accountable.

*Photos copied from Marc Masferrer who obtained them from Cubanet