Fact Sheet on Orlando Zapata Tamayo

"Long live human rights, with my blood I wrote to you so that this be saved as evidence of the savagery we are subjected to that are victims of the Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoners [movement]" - Orlando Zapata Tamayo, letter smuggled out April of 2004*

 Orlando Zapata Tamayo tortured and killed by prison officials on February 23, 2010

Fact #1 Orlando Zapata Tamayo was murdered by Cuban government officials 

Both Abel Lopez Perez and Reina Luisa Tamayo charge that Cuban prison officials denied Orlando Zapata Tamayo water in an effort to break his spirit. Reina Luisa Tamayo in an interview with Yoani Sanchez, hours after her son’s death denounced that officials had denied him water.[1] Abel Lopez corroborates the charge stating: “Before Zapata was checked into the hospital, he was regularly taking some vitamins. He was in a weak state of health. 

A military chief known as ‘Gordo’, who was the one responsible for ordering all of Zapata’s things to be taken out of the cell and to stop giving him water, also took his bottle of vitamins and poured all the pills down a drain. He told him, ‘Those who are in protest here don’t drink vitamins. I think those are pills sent to you by the Yankees so you can continue your hunger strike.’ Those were the exact words said to him, I verified them. His vitamins were taken away, as were any other medications. And they stopped giving him water for a while.”[2] This type of practice was also documented in the 1966 death of another Cuban hunger striker, Roberto López Chávez.[3], [4] Denying water to a man on water only hunger strike is cruel and inhuman treatment that contributed to his death.


Fact #2 Orlando Zapata Tamayo was an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience

Orlando Zapata Tamayo was recognized as an Amnesty International (AI) prisoner of conscience on January 29, 2004 a designation given only to nonviolent activists after careful examination.[5] On January 29, 2004 Amnesty International outlined Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s past arrests:

“He has been arrested several times in the past. For example he was temporarily detained on 3 July 2002 and 28 October 2002. In November 2002 after taking part in a workshop on human rights in the central Havana park, José Martí, he and eight other government opponents were reportedly arrested and later released. He was also arrested on 6 December 2002 along with Oscar Elías Biscet[6], but was released on 8 March 2003. Most recently, he was arrested on the morning of 20 March 2003 whilst taking part in a hunger strike at the Fundación Jesús Yánez Pelletier, Jesús Yánez Pelletier Foundation, in Havana, to demand the release of Oscar Biscet and other political prisoners.”[7]

Orlando Zapata Tamayo appeared photographed in the Cuban government’s own publication Los Disidentes, in photos prior to his 2003 arrest and was then recognized by Cuban officials as a dissident. The Spanish newspaper El Mundo carried a photo the day after the Cuban regime announced the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo with prominent Cuban dissidents.[8]


Fact #3 Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s hunger strike was an act of non-violent self-defense

Orlando Zapata Tamayo waz beaten and tortured on more than one occasion by prison guards and state security along with other prisoners. His body was scarred and his health in decline. For example Amnesty International reported that, on "October 20, 2003 [Orlando Zapata] was dragged along the floor of Combinado del Este Prison by prison officials after requesting medical attention, leaving his back full of lacerations."[9] Cuban political prisoner Abel Lopez Perez transferred to the same prison in Camaguey as Orlando Zapata Tamayo on December 3, 2009 briefly saw him and heard from other prisoners “that a few days before being taken away, Zapata stood up and shouted, ‘People, don’t let yourselves be lied to. Don’t believe anything that they tell you. I’m not demanding a kitchen or any of the things they took away from me. I’m demanding an improvement of treatment for all prisoners, and so you all know, I am going to die for it.’”[10] The case of Ariel Sigler Amaya, another Cuban prisoner of conscience, is instructive. He had to threaten a hunger strike, although already emaciated and crippled, to obtain medical treatment to save his life.[11] The hunger strike was not an act of suicide but rather a tactic of self defense within the arsenal of nonviolent options.

Fact #4 Between 1966 and 2021 at least nine Cuban political prisoners died while on hunger strike: Roberto López Chávez , Carmelo Cuadra Hernández , Pedro Luis Boitel, Olegario Charlot Pileta, Enrique García Cuevas, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Wilman Villar Mendoza, and Yosvany Arostegui Armenteros.

Roberto López Chávez, 25 years old, died on December 11, 1966 in Isla de Pinos prison on hunger strike without medical assistance.[12] Armando Valladares, in his prison memoir, Against All Hope described the circumstances surrounding his death: “When Roberto López Chávez, went on a hunger strike to protest the abuses in the prison, the guards withheld water from him until he became delirious, twisting on the floor and begging for something to drink. The guards then urinated in his mouth. He died the next day.”[13], [14]

Carmelo Cuadra Hernández, died in La Cabaña prison in April of 1969 on hunger strike, after suffering mistreatment and torture over eight and a half months, without receiving medical care and was the third political prisoner that has died on a hunger strike.[15], [16]

Pedro Luis Boitel died on hunger strike on May 25, 1972.[17],[18]

Olegario Charlot Pileta, died in the famous "Escaleras" (staircase) of the Boniato prison, in of January 1973 during a hunger strike, without medical assistance and is described in documents as a “black youth.” [19],[20]

Enrique García Cuevas died on a hunger strike, without receiving medical care, in cell No. 4 of the new Provincial Jail of Santa Clara, on June 24, 1973.[21]

Two of the four outlined above died on hunger strikes after Pedro Luis Boitel and there are partial estimates that place the number identified to have died while on hunger strike at twelve including both Boitel and Zapata. Since the death of Pedro Luis Boitel there are partial lists identifying six political prisoners dead on hunger strikes between May 25, 1972 and February 23, 2010.[22]

Wilman Villar Mendoza, a Cuban prisoner of conscience died on January 19, 2012 from complications of pneumonia after a 50-day hunger strike. [ 23],[24] 

Cuban dissident Yosvany Arostegui Armenteros died on August 7, 2020 in Cuba while in police custody following a 40 day hunger strike. He had been jailed on false charges in the Kilo 8 prison of Camagüey. His body was quickly cremated by the dictatorship. [25]

Sources:

1. Sanchez, Yoani “Orlando Zapata Tamayo's Mother Speaks After Her Son's Death” The Huffington Post February 24, 2010 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/orlando-zapata-tamayos-mo_b_475006.html

2. Felipe Rojas, Luis “Abel Remembers the Last Days of Zapata in a Prison of Camaguey” Crossing the Barbed Wire November 24, 2010 http://cruzarlasalambradaseng.wordpress.com/2010/11/24/abel-remembers-the-last-days-of-zapata-in-a-prison-of-camaguey/

3. Valladares, Armando Against All Hope: The Prison Memoirs of Armando Valladares (1st edition Knopf April 12, 1986) quote taken from (1st Edition Encounter Books April 1, 2001) pg. 379

4. Glazov, Jamie United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror WND Books, 2009 Pg 48

5. Amnesty International “CUBA Newly declared prisoners of conscience” January 29, 2004  
    https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/AMR25/002/2004/en/

6. Quintero, Tania “CUBA | Llorando a un amigo ¡Así te voy a recordar, Orlando!” El Mundo February 24, 2010 http://www.elmundo.es/america/2010/02/24/cuba/1267020583.html

7. Amnesty International “CUBA Newly declared prisoners of conscience” January 29, 2004 https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/AMR25/002/2004/en/

8. Felipe Rojas, Luis “Abel Remembers the Last Days of Zapata in a Prison of Camaguey” Crossing the Barbed Wire November 24, 2010 http://cruzarlasalambradaseng.wordpress.com/2010/11/24/abel-remembers-the-last-days-of-zapata-in-a-prison-of-camaguey/

9. Rodriguez, Eliott “Paralyzed Former Cuban Prisoner Arrives In Miami” CBS4 July 28, 2010

10. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights “Annual Report 1975: 1805 Cuba” http://www.cidh.org/annualrep/75eng/Cuba1805.htm

11. Valladares, Armando Against All Hope: The Prison Memoirs of Armando Valladares (1st edition Knopf April 12, 1986) quote taken from (1st Edition Encounter Books April 1, 2001) pg. 379

12. Glazov, Jamie United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror WND Books, 2009 Pg 48

13. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights SITUATION OF POLITICAL PRISONERS IN CUBA (1976) http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/cuba76eng/chap.1.htm

14. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights SEGUNDO INFORME SOBRE LA SITUACIÓN DE LOS PRESOS POLÍTICOS Y SUS FAMILIAS EN CUBA May 7, 1970 http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/Cuba70sp/cap.1b.htm

15. Amnesty International “CUBA Newly declared prisoners of conscience” January 29, 2004 https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/AMR25/002/2004/en/

16. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights “Annual Report 1975: 1805 Cuba” http://www.cidh.org/annualrep/75eng/Cuba1805.htm

17. Tamayo, Juan O. “Jailed Cuban activist Orlando Zapata Tamayo dies on hunger strike” The Miami Herald February 23, 2010 https://newcentrist.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/jailed-cuban-activist-orlando-zapata-tamayo-dies-on-hunger-strike/

18. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights 6TH REPORT ON THE SITUATION OF POLITICAL PRISONERS IN CUBA: CHAPTER III: AN ANALYSIS OF CERTAIN INDIVIDUAL CASES SUBMITTED TO THE IACHR 14 December 1979 http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/cuba79eng/chap.3.htm

19. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights CHAPTER I SITUATION OF POLITICAL PRISONERS IN CUBA (1976) http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/cuba76eng/chap.1.htm

20. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights “Annual Report 1975: 1805 Cuba” http://www.cidh.org/annualrep/75eng/Cuba1805.htm

21. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights CHAPTER I SITUATION OF POLITICAL PRISONERS IN CUBA (1976) http://www.cidh.org/countryrep/cuba76eng/chap.1.htm

22. Corzo, Pedro “El calvario de las prisiones cubanas” El Nuevo Herald March 13, 2010 https://democraciaparticipativa.net/foro/iberoamerica-y-espana-latin-america-spain/3038-el-calvario-de-las-prisiones-cubanas

23. Amnesty International "Cuban authorities 'responsible' for activist's death on hunger strike" January 20, 2012 https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2012/01/cuban-authorities-responsible-activists-death-hunger-strike/ 

24. CBC Radio Canada "Cuban dissident dies after hunger strike: Prisoner of conscience, Amnesty International says" January 20, 2012 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/cuban-dissident-dies-after-hunger-strike-1.1293336

25. Center for a Free Cuba. "CubaBrief: Yosvany Arostegui Armenteros and the continuing six decade tragedy of political prisoners in Cuba "  August 12, 2020. https://www.cubacenter.org/archives/2020/8/12/cubabrief-yosvany-arostegui-armenteros-and-the-continuing-six-decade-tragedy-of-political-prisoners-in-cuba

Remembering some of the victims of Cuban communism: Wilman Villar Mendoza

 "When one man dies it's a tragedy. When thousands die it's statistics." - Josef Stalin

Wilman Villar Mendoza: May 30, 1980 - January 19, 2012

Some psychologists argue that as the number of victims increase into the hundreds, and thousands that compassion collapses out of the human fear of being overwhelmed. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin put it more succinctly: "When one man dies it's a tragedy. When thousands die it's statistics." In the case of Cuba the communist regime has killed tens of thousands, and many have become numb in the face of this horror. Therefore on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the first communist regime in Russia, that caused so much harm around the world, will focus on the small corner of Cuba and on an infinitesimal sampling of some of the victims of Cuban communism.

In this fifth entry will focus on a Amnesty International prisoner of conscience who died on hunger strike protesting his unjust imprisonment in 2012.

Previous entries in this series where about Cubans trying to change the system nonviolently. The first entry concerned Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a humble bricklayer turned courageous human rights defender who paid the ultimate price in 2010 for speaking truth to power. The second entry focused on Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, a Catholic lay activist, nonviolence icon, husband, father of three and the founder of a Cuban opposition movement that shook up the Castro regime with a petition drive demanding that human rights be respected and recognized in Cuba. This action and speaking truth to power led to his extrajudicial killing in 2012. The third entry focused on one of the great crimes of the Castro regime that has been well documented by international human rights organizations and reported on ABC News Nightline that claimed the lives of 37 men, women, and children. They were trying to flee the despotism in Cuba to live in freedom and were extrajudicially executed. In the fourth focused on an act of state terrorism when two planes were shot down on a Saturday afternoon at 3:21 and 3:27 on February 24, 1996 over international airspace while engaged in a search and rescue flight for Cuban rafters killing four humanitarians. Their planes were destroyed by air-to-air missiles fired by a Cuban MiG-29 aircraft on the orders of Raul and Fidel Castro.

On Sunday, January 15, 2012 (on Martin Luther King Jr's birthday) a large group of the Ladies in White were brutally beaten up and detained as they marched from the Cobre to the hospital Juan Bruno Zayas calling for the release of Wilman Villar Mendoza and that his life be saved. Wilman has been on a hunger strike for over 50 days protesting his unjust imprisonment. Comparisons are being drawn between his plight and that of the late prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

Four days later he was dead. On January 19, 2012 two little girls lost their dad; a young wife her husband; and a mother her son. Wilman Villar Mendoza died after his kidneys and other organs failed. He died, the result of a prolonged hunger strike provoked by outrage over a profound injustice committed against him by the communist regime in Cuba. He was just 31 years old.


Wilman Villar Mendoza was arrested on November 14, 2011 during a violent crackdown by the political police on nonviolent Cuban democrats. Wilman and the others had engaged in a public protest in the town of Contramaestre in Santiago, Cuba on November 2, 2011. 

Police told him "he would be disappeared or face imprisonment on criminal charges stemming from an earlier arrest if he did not stop his protests and leave the dissident group."
 
Ten days later in a closed-door, one day sham trial on November 24 , where the judge "refused to accept testimony from his wife or other defense witnesses," Wilman was sentenced to four years in prison for disobedience, resisting arrest and contempt and was sent to Aguadores prison.

Outraged at the injustice committed against him Wilman launched a hunger strike on November 25, 2011 and refused to wear the uniform of a common prisoner. There was little press coverage or official protests regarding his plight until his death appeared imminent.

Ladies in White and other opposition activists marched and demonstrated on his behalf suffering brutal beatings and detentions but the international press remained silent. When confronting a brutal totalitarian dictatorship there is a very simple equation:

silence = violence = death.

International official protests and heightened press scrutiny on behalf of brutalized dissidents means less bloodshed. Silence means that Maritza Pelegrino Cabrera, Wilman's wife, is now a widow and her two young daughters ages 5 and 6 will not get to grow up with their dad.

On January 20, 2012, the Special Adviser at Amnesty International, Javier Zúñiga condemned the regime:"[t]he responsibility for Wilman Villar Mendoza’s death in custody lies squarely with the Cuban authorities, who summarily judged and jailed him for exercising his right to freedom of expression."

Five years later the human rights situation remains dire, but the untimely death of Wilman Villar Mendoza is not forgotten or the need for justice for him and his loved ones.

Reflecting on Obama's Cuba Policy Legacy

"The talk today is of globalization, but we must state that unless there is global solidarity, not only human rights but also the right to remain human will be jeopardized." - Oswaldo Paya, December 17, 2002

The President and the dictator address their respective countries on 12/17/14

Obama Cuba policy: Abandoning containment to embrace appeasement

By John Suarez

The Obama Administration's new Cuba policy marks two years on December 17th and with just 35 days left in this Presidency this is a good moment to reflect on what The White House has achieved over the past eight years. President Obama announced his new Cuba policy on December 17, 2014 to great fanfare but downplayed commuting the sentences of three Cuban spies, including Gerardo Hernandez who was serving a life sentence for his role in a murder conspiracy that claimed four innocent lives in 1996. 

However the change, not only in tone but in action, began not in 2014 but in 2009 first with the meeting with Hugo Chavez, second snubbing Cuban dissidents, followed by the repeated unilateral loosening of economic sanctions despite the arbitrary detention of U.S. citizen Alan Gross. Gross would go on to spend the next five years in a Cuban prison cell as a bargaining chip for the Castro regime that demanded the return of the above mentioned spies. 

President Obama shaking hands with President Hugo Chavez (2009)

Unfortunately despite President Obama's claims, the fact of the matter is that the previous Cuba policy did not fail and secondly that U.S. policy towards Cuba over the previous half century was not static. The U.S. after failing to overthrow the Castro regime in the early 1960s along with the risk of a nuclear conflagration in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis pursued a policy of containment combining economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation. This was a successful policy that raised the cost and limited the expansion of the Castro regime abroad.

Lamentably, both during the Carter (1977 - 1981) and Clinton (1993 - 2001) Administrations the policy of containment was twice weakened and partially dismantled in favor of one of engagement with the dictatorship. On both occasions this legitimized the regime, provided it with more resources that allowed it to project further internationally. This approach coincided with the rise of the Sandinista regime in 1979 in Nicaragua with the assistance of the Cuban intelligence service and the rise of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in 1999.  Internally human rights violations and levels of violence spiked during both periods coinciding with the Mariel mass exodus of 1980 and the rafter crisis of 1994. 

This pattern has been repeated during the Obama Administration but the third time may prove to be the worse for a number of reasons. This is not a new policy but a very old one that empowers dictators but has no apparent benefit for the United States. It also did not begin on December 17, 2014 although the drive towards embracing the Castro dictatorship was intensified after this date. 

Some of the Cubans killed by the Castro regime over the past eight years

Beginning in 2009 the Obama Administration marginalized Cuban dissidents and the Castro regime understood this and Cuban opposition leaders began dying under suspicious circumstances with their international visibility rising over time as the previous dead activist would generate some international media attention but otherwise zero consequences: Orlando Zapata Tamayo (2010), Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia (2011), Laura Inés Pollán Toledo (2011), Wilman Villar Mendoza (2012), Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas (2012), and Harold Cepero (2012).

Despite Cuba under Castro continuing its pattern of outlaw behavior: smuggling tons of weapons  into North Korea in 2013 and getting hold of a U.S. Hellfire missile in 2014 that had been used in European NATO military exercises that afterward ended up in Havana, the negotiations continued.  Four months after President Obama announced this new relationship,  in Colombia another smuggled arms shipment involving Cuba was uncovered in March of 2015. On May 29, 2015 Secretary of State John Kerry, ignoring all the above, rescinded Cuba's designation as a state terror sponsor.

During the Obama Presidency the human rights situation has deteriorated with over 54,838 politically motivated arbitrary detentions in Cuba and escalating violence against activists. Currently there are three high profile cases of a doctor, lawyer and artist separately imprisoned in Cuba for their political beliefs.However the case of extrajudicial violence remains a concern.The case of dissident Sirley Avila Leon the victim of a government engineered machete attack that crippled the 57 year old with machete blows to both legs, arms and the loss of her left hand in May of 2015 is a powerful and disturbing example. Rafters and fleeing refugees continue to be attacked and in some cases shot in the back for trying to leave Cuba as was the case of Yuriniesky Martínez on April 9, 2015. Meanwhile the State Department watered down its report on human trafficking in Cuba.

On February 3, 2015, Rosa María Payá, in testimony before a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, indicted the indifference of the US government and the international community: 

On 22 July 2012, Cuban State Security detained the car in which my father, Oswaldo Payá, and my friend Harold Cepero, along with two young European politicians, were traveling. All of them survived, but my father disappeared for hours only to reappear dead, in the hospital in which Harold would die without medical attention. The Cuban government wouldn’t have dared to carry out its death threats against my father if the U.S. government and the democratic world had been showing solidarity. If you turn your face, impunity rages. While you slept, the regime was conceiving their cleansing of the pro-democracy leaders to come. While you sleep, a second generation of dictators is planning with impunity their next crimes.

Two months later Rosa María Payá, and other activists were harassed first at the airport by Panamanian officials and later at the VII Summit of the Americas because the United States, along with the democracies of the region, invited Raul Castro to the summit. Castro arrived with a huge entourage of state security agents, then proceeded to interrupt and shut down official civil society gatherings at the summit to silence dissent. Cuban pro-democracy activists were physically assaulted in a public park when they tried to lay a wreath before a bust of Jose Marti suffering broken bones and black eyes.

Throughout the past two years alone over 89,789 visaless Cubans entered the United States in a huge exodus not seen since the Carter and Clinton years with even more Cubans fleeing to South and Central America.

President Obama and General Castro attended a baseball game together in 2016

Despite all of this President Obama visited Cuba on an official state visit in March 2016 of this year elevating Raul Castro's international stature along with his 51 year old son Alejandro Castro Espin who is being groomed for a leadership role and possible generational succession in Cuba.

Unfortunately, the Obama Administration's Cuba policy is having an impact internationally that is negatively impacting human rights in Cuba internally. The latest being the decision of the European Union to "open a new chapter" on relations with Cuba that drops human rights as a condition for normalization and will be the end of a European Common Position adopted in 1996. This arrangement was formalized in a signing ceremony on December 12, 2016.

Furthermore the loosening of sanctions on the Castro regime has coincided with further tightening of economic controls by General Raul Castro and the military over the Cuban economy. Despite the claims that engaging with the dictatorship would lead to more trade the facts say otherwise. Trade between Cuba and the United States has collapsed during the Obama Administration.

There is much more but for the sake of brevity will conclude with President Obama's October 14, 2016 Presidential Policy Directive on Cuba that some credit with costing Secretary Hillary Clinton the 2016 election in Florida by driving up the Cuban American vote for Donald Trump.

All should be concerned that The White House in its October policy directive instructed US intelligence agencies to share information with Castro's spy agency. This is a regime that not only engages in systematic human rights violations, but also has a long track record with international terrorism.

The new Administration should first follow the law and repeal all of Obama's Executive Orders that run afoul of the law or the US Constitution. In the case of Cuba, President Trump has an opportunity to turn a disastrous policy around and work to defend American interests and also speed up a democratic transition that would benefit the region.

Sadly the Obama legacy in Cuba will be remembered as one of appeasing and extending the life of the Castro dictatorship, while paying lip service to human rights and a missed opportunity with the death of Fidel Castro. The embargo policy is a policy of containment that protects vital U.S. interests but is not a policy that frees the Cuban people, but worse yet the Obama Cuba policy is a step in the wrong direction siding with the oppressor while marginalizing the oppressed.

Some victims of Castro regime violence since 2012

Help save the life of a Cuban political prisoner by calling on Cuban government to free him now

The way to #SaveBacallao is to #FreeBacallao

81 days later and the United States government has appealed to the Cuban government to release Cuban political prisoner Vladimir Morera Bacallao. However now is not the time to stop the effort to raise awareness on the plight of the labor activist and human rights defender. Citizen activists of goodwill around the world need to intensify our efforts to obtain his release and save his life by doing three things. First, please reach out to your elected representatives and ask them to speak out on Vladimir Bacallao's behalf. Second, call the hospital he is currently at inquiring about his health and if the Cuban government will free him. Third, use the hashtag #SaveBacallao and let others know about his plight.

Work to save his life now so that if you fail and the question is asked: Where were you the day Vladimir Morera Bacallao died then at least you can say: "Trying to save his life." Canadian punk rock band I.H.A.D. put that question to music in September of 2010, just seven months after Orlando Zapata Tamayo died asking Canadian tourists: "Where were you the day Orlando Zapata Tamayo died?" Below is a video of the song from 2012.

On December 27, 2015 independent journalist Reinaldo Escobar of the publication 14yMedio published an excellent article on Vladimir Bacallao that was translated to English and is reproduced below that gives an overview of his case:

Cuban Activist On The Brink Of Death After A Prolonged Hunger Strike / 14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar

A blacksmith by profession, he never imagined that after so many years of fabricating bars for his neighbors’ homes, he would end up locked behind prison bars. The activist Vladimir Morera Bacallao will mark 80 days on a hunger strike this Monday, 28 December, the Day of the Holy Innocents. That is, if the authorities don’t release him or he doesn’t starve to death first.

Right now, Morera Bacallao languishes in intermediate care at the Arnaldo Milian provincial hospital in the city of Santa Clara. He was taken there less than a week ago, after his family and colleagues in the Cuban Reflection Movement (MCR) carried out a campaign demanding that the prison authorities pay attention to his case.

MCR leader Librado Linares told 14ymedio that morera Bacallao now weighs less than 95 pounds, and within the next few hours his health could deteriorate “to the point of no return.” Saturday afternoon, Linares, a former prisoner of the 2003 Black Spring, said “he is so weak now that he doesn’t recognize anyone.”

Linares says that he is “knocking on the doors of the Bishop [of Santa Clara] and some of the province’s fraternal organizations,” to prevent the hunger striker’s death and to achieve his immediate release. The dissident is calling on the national and international community to do everything possible, “to not let him die.”

Morera Bacallo, was sentenced to four years in prison in case 404 of 2015, accused of the crime of “injuries.” The basis of this accusation, according to his family members who attended the trial, was a blow to the head received by Ivis Herrera, second secretary of the Communist Party in the municipality of Manicaragua, in the province of Villa Clara.

Several witnesses confirmed that the injury occurred when the official fell to the ground while sliding on melted asphalt that had been thrown down in front of and around Morera Bacallao’s house. The dumping of the material was part of the aggressions of the area’s “rapid response brigades” against the dissident, instigated by Ivis Herrera himself.
The events, classified as “public disorder,” happened on 19 April of this year, on the eve of the elections for the People’s Power. The opponent decided to put a sign on the door of his house where he proclaimed, “I vote for my freedom and not in some elections where I cannot elect my president.” The text unleashed the fury of the town’s government rulers.

Most of the working-age people in Manicaragua work in military factories or are active members of the armed forces. Thus, the residents of the area respond with a special intolerance and violence against any public display of differences with the government.
Rapid response brigades assaulted Morera Bacallao’s house in April, breaking windows, beating the inhabitants without distinction to sex or age, and throwing bricks. The operation included the spreading of melted asphalt, along with insults and abuse. In the early morning hours, when it seemed that everything was over, the uniformed Special Brigade of the Ministry of the Interior arrived and arrested the activist.

From the moment he fell into prison, the dissident declared himself on a hunger strike and only abandoned it in June, 40 days later, when he was hospitalized and they promised they would review his case. As the authorities did not fulfill their promise, on 9 October he resumed his hunger strike in the Guamajal prison hospital on the outskirts of Santa Clara. There he lost more than 88 pounds, according to Arsenio Lopez Roa, an inmate who provided the information.

Last Monday, the medical team informed the family that the striker had “vomited blood at least eight times, during the transfer from prison to the hospital.” The same source predicted that “at any moment he could experience digestive bleeding.”

In November 2013, Morera Bacallao was sentenced to eight years in prison for reasons very similar to today’s, after suffering an act of repudiation. He was released after one year, on 14 December 2014, after consecutive hunger strikes. Two months later, his name appeared on the list of the 53 prisoners released after talks between Barack Obama and Raul Castro; a list that was not initially made public at the time of their release.

Castro regime trolls over social media continue to slander the hunger striking former independent labor activist and current member of the Cuban Reflection Movement.  This type of libel was also used in campaigns against two Cuban prisoners of conscience: Orlando Zapata Tamayo who died on hunger strike on February 23, 2010 and Wilman Villar Mendoza who died on hunger strike on January 19, 2012. Following their deaths the campaigns slandering and libeling their name posthumously intensified as did the harassment and intimidation against their family members. People of goodwill need to remain vigilant.

Cuban political prisoner near death on hunger strike: Day 80

SOS for Cuban political prisoner

Vladimir Morera Bacallao on hunger strike in Cuba

Unjustly imprisoned and mistreated Vladimir Morera Bacallao was arrested and sentenced to four years in prison for writing on the wall of his home, “I vote for my freedom and not in elections where I cannot elect my president.” He has been on hunger strike since October 9th demanding his freedom and today marks 80 days and Vladimir's family is reporting that he does not recognize them and his eyes are fixed. 

On December 22, 2015 Radio República reported that Cuban political prisoner Vladimir Morera Bacallao had finally been transferred from Guamajal prison to "Arnaldo Milian" provincial hospital in the city of Santa Clara in serious condition. Vladimir's wife, Maribel Herrera reported to Diario de Cuba that "He is very weak and delicate, weighing 45 kilos, and is still on hunger strike, not eating anything, drinks little water and won't allow them to feed him intravenously.  

Family members have not been able to visit with Vladimir during long stretches of the hunger strike. This is a practice that has been carried out as punishment against other Cuban activists who have died on hunger strikes in Cuba in recent years.

Meanwhile Castro regime trolls over social media are engaged in slandering the dying former independent labor activist and current member of the Cuban Reflection Movement. 

Wilman Villar Mendoza (2012) and Orlando Zapata Tamayo (2010)

 The Cuban dictatorship rejects transparent human rights monitoring by independent human rights organizations because it is engaged in the systematic violation of the human rights of Cubans on the island in order to maintain itself in power. Independent Cuban human rights organizations are labeled mercenary, their members common criminals and independent international human rights organizations are are also demonized and accused of bias by the regime's agents of influence on the far left.

The deaths of two Amnesty International prisoners of conscience: Orlando Zapata Tamayo in 2010 and Wilman Villar Mendoza 23 months later in 2012 provide context into how the Castro regime engages in campaigns of slander against political prisoners in order to minimize international outrage. This is what the Cuban state security service is now doing with Vladimir Morera Bacallao.

The debate over the body count of politically motivated killings by the dictatorship in Cuba varies widely with counts of 12,000 killed, 73,000 killed or even 100,000 extrajudicial killings since 1959. A full accounting needs to be carried by a truth commission in a post-Castro regime to arrive at the truth, but sadly the number continues to rise and under the Obama administration high profile opposition leaders have been added to the count.

Vladimir Morera Bacallao was one of the names on a list of 53 political prisoners that the Obama administration made public in January of 2015 following the December 17, 2014 announcement of a new US-Cuba policy. According to The New York Times, a cheer leader for this new policy, it "was seen as an important indicator of the Cuban government’s commitment to carrying out the agreement" with the United States. However, Morera Bacallao had been sent home on October 11, 2014,  months prior to the December 17th announcement following another lengthy hunger strike. Others among the 53 named by the Obama administration have also been re-arrested.

The Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Tom Malinowski on Christmas Eve expressed "concern"for the plight of Vladimir Morera Bacallao over twitter. Rosa María Payá responded to him over twitter stating: "Justice and immediate release of all political prisoners should be conditions, not concerns."

Meanwhile in Cuba activists take to the streets in a campaign to raise awareness on the plight of
Vladimir Morera Bacallao led by Cuban Reflection Movement leader, Librado Linares Garcia.

The question activists are asking themselves of the international community was concretely expressed by Capitol Hill Cubans in the powerful blog entry: Who Cares About Vladimir Morera Bacallao?

What can you do to help save a life?

1. Use the hashtag #SaveBacallao on social media and let others know about his plight. 

2. Call the hospital where he is currently being held [ Tel: +53-42-271234 +53-42-271256 +53-42-20105/81] and express your concern on his health status.

3. Ask your elected representatives to contact the Cuban government and have them express their concern on the plight of Vladimir Morera Bacallao directly. At the same time have them speak before their legislative body on the record regarding his plight.

Cuban diplomat's conduct in EU Parliament offers unwitting testimony on human rights in Cuba

Regime officials show their true selves in the European parliament 

EU Parliament listening to human rights presentation today [photo: Dita Charanzová]

 Totalitarians have a specific playbook that doesn't vary that borders on the neurotic. Those who dissent from building the ideological project of the totalitarian regime are to be destroyed. Destruction can be verbal but all too often physical as were the cases of Orlando Zapata Tamayo and Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas.

Today, while presenting a human rights report on Cuba at the European Parliament, one of Raul Castro's diplomats sought to demonize and discredit me using the epithet of mercenary arguing that he had evidence that I was "paid to act against my homeland" and that he would distribute the evidence that I was receiving U.S. funds.

He did not address the substance of the  human rights report presented but sought to destroy the reputation and legitimacy of the author. The Cuban diplomat argued that "Cuba has presented on two occasions its country report to the United Nations Human Rights Council [during two Universal Periodic Reviews] working on implementing the recommendations approved by our country and added that "Cuba" does not recognize the European Parliament much less political groups neither the importance or competence to analyze the human rights situation of the members of the ALBA here present." Not mentioned was the process by which they circumvented the spirit of the UPR and corrupted the process.

Cuban author and intellectual, Carlos Alberto Montaner in 2012 at the Miami Book Fair analyzed this practice of totalitarian regimes and the why behind this practice of character assassination. The objective is to destroy the messenger and avoid the ideas and content being discussed. That is precisely what happened today. However the Castro regime goes further demonizing two million Cubans in Miami regardless of ideological and philosophical differences that are normal in a free society and lump them all together under this destructive stereotype that has had an impact internationally. Carlos Alberto Montaner concluded that "Cuba is one of those states that seeks to destroy the collective image of their emigrants and the particular image of those people that they have decided are their enemies."

Event today interrupted by Cuban diplomats

The Castro regime today objected to members of the European parliament freely gathering to analyze reports on the human rights situation in Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela. They disrupted the conversation were members could weigh the evidence presented and question the authors on matters of substance. They sought to threaten and intimidate participants in what amounted to persecution with the aim of supressing their work which would qualify as an attempt to censor. 

For the record, I was born in the United States and am a citizen of the United States. My family left Cuba in the 1950s prior to the Castro regime, in part, because they opposed the Batista dictatorship. They did not return to live in Cuba afterwards because of the then new and now ongoing dictatorship installed by the Castro brothers.  As a human rights activist I have never pretended to speak for the Cuban people, but will defend the content of my writings and human rights reporting.

Any reasonably objective person would conclude that the Cuban people have been subjected to a totalitarian and dynastic dictatorship run by the Castro family for the past 56 years. Taking this into account it is also reasonable that after more than 56 years under a totalitarian dictatorship that Cubans should have a say as to how they are governed and exercise their long denied sovereignty.

The statements made by the Cuban official today at the European parliament are evidence of the continuing hostility of the Castro regime towards human rights in general and the exercise of free expression in particular.

Evicted along with his family and left homeless for political reasons to die

 Former Cuban political prisoner Luis Enrique Santos Caballero evicted, humiliated and left homeless along with the rest of his family for political reasons in Cuba by State Security is slowly dying.  Luis Enrique began a hunger strike on May 24, 2013 demanding housing for him and his family. His health was compromised to begin with, he has only one kidney.

Fifteen days into the hunger strike and his condition has rapidly deteriorated and his demands have not been met. His wife has engaged in public protests demanding that Luis Enrique's demands be met. Until now the agents of the dictatorship have responded to the demands raised in public actions only with repression.

In a world where the stability of countries can be shaken and governments overthrown by a vendor being mistreated in Tunisia, or the police engaging in violence against activists protesting the destruction of one of the last spots of green space in Istanbul setting off nation wide protests in Turkey, regime's especially autocratic ones like Cuba had better think long and hard about the acts of repression and humiliation they carry out. Any one of them can be the straw that broke the camel's back and usher in dramatic change.
 
Last night, June 7, 2013,  Luis Enrique was transferred to a hospital and his condition was extremely fragile. Many fear for his life and are uncertain about his fate in the hands of regime officials.

Time is running out and Luis Enrique Santos Caballero risks suffering the fate of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Wilman Villar Mendoza, Pedro Luis Boitel, dying while defending dignity with his own body in a hunger strike.

Below is the latest report from Jorge Garcia Perez "Antunez" of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Civic Resistance Front on the status of Luis Enrique.

Cuba undergoes its 2nd Universal Periodic Review before the UN Human Rights Council today

"Yet is it far better to light the candle than to curse the darkness." - W.L. Watkins 

Human Rights Activists calls on Human Rights Council to analyze repression in Cuba

The state of Cuba undergoes its second quadrennial evaluation at the 16th session of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) before the United Nations Human Rights Council today beginning at 2:30pm and ending at 6:00pm Geneva time and can be viewed here in real time. It is a quadrennial review conducted between states. The Cuban dictatorship is doing everything possible to circumvent and subvert the process.

The UPR itself is a peer review which means that only states can participate and as the Heritage Foundation has observed it can turn the process into a "mutual praise society" for repressive regimes. In addition to this, the Cuban government flooded the non-governmental organization submissions with GONGOS (Governmental Non-Governmental Organizations) to subvert the summary prepared by the Office of the High Commisioner for Human Rights of NGO submissions.

The totalitarian state in Cuba controls all mass media and is churning out propaganda to cover up its dismal human rights record. Finally, although Cubans on the island do not have easy access to the internet the dictatorship is engaged in a full out offensive in social media and twitter. Nevertheless it will fail in 2013 as it did during its first review in 2009 because the truth does get out despite all of the Cuban regime's desperate maneuvers. You can play a role in frustrating the regime's designs by tweeting about human rights violations in Cuba using hash-tags such as #UPR16, #CubaUPR, and #Cuba #UPR along with concrete, well documented information on outrages committed over the past four years. Think about it for a moment, just a partial list of the activists who have died extrajudicially over the past four years: Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Juan Wilfredo Soto García, Laura Pollán, Wilman Villar Mendoza, Harold Cepero Escalante and Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas. Things are getting worse not better. The trends are troubling for human rights defenders.

The Universal Periodic Review has one feature that is a threat to dictatorships and that is that anyone who produces a report can submit it for consideration to the Office of the High Commissioner and free Cubans in the island have done just that and succeeded in breaking through the regime information monopoly.

Courageous men and women in Cuba have documented and denounced human rights abuses and the systematic pattern of abuse. Reports were prepared in 2012 by international human rights NGOs such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Centrist Democrat International and inside of Cuba by the Consejo de Relatores de Derechos Humanos de Cuba [Council of Human Rights Rapporteurs of Cuba], Coalición Central Opositora [Central Opposition Coalition] and the Movimiento Rosa Parks [Rosa Parks Movement], among others and from the Cuban diaspora the Coalition of Cuban American Women and the Cuban Democratic Directorate.

It is an opportunity once every four years to place Cuba under the world spotlight while the media is paying attention and seize the opportunity not only for states, but for independent civil society to analyze the human rights situation in Cuba and chip away at the regime's wall of impunity.

Earlier this year at the United Nations Human Rights Council two members of the Christian Liberation Movement, Regis Iglesias and Rosa María Payá were able to address the Council and demand an investigation into the deaths of their founder and their youth leader.

Remembering dissident's death one year ago leads to brutal beatings today

"The responsibility for Wilman Villar Mendoza’s death in custody lies squarely with the Cuban authorities, who summarily judged and jailed him for exercising his right to freedom of expression." -  Amnesty International,  January 20, 2012

Wilman Villar Mendoza (1980 -2012)

Cuban prisoner of conscience Wilman Villar Mendoza died in custody of the Castro regime one year ago today. He was just 31 years old. He should never have been in prison in the first place. He is survived by two little girls; a wife; and his mother.
 
On the Thursday, January 19, 2012 at approximately 6:30pm Cuban prisoner of conscience and opposition activist Wilmar Villar Mendoza died after his kidneys and other organs failed. He died the result of a prolonged hunger strike provoked by outrage over his unjust imprisonment and four year prison sentence issued in a closed-door sham trial on November 24, 2011 by agents of the Castro regime. He died defending both human rights and dignity. Amnesty International recognized him as a prisoner of conscience and Human Rights Watch documented that Wilmar was a Cuban opposition activist.

Today, when members of his movement, the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), tried to remember their dead friend they were beaten up by Cuban state security agents. At 2:18pm Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia was able to post over twitter video footage of three of the victims of the attack. In a later tweet at 5:32pm, Jose Daniel states: "We can describe as very severe the attacks against UNPACU activists in Santiago de Cuba province, on first anniversary of the death of Wilman Villar."


 Totalitarian regimes have patterns of conduct. Beating up, arresting and imprisoning an innocent man for engaging in the nonviolent exercise of his fundamental human rights is a common practice in the Cuban regime. "Accidents" and sudden "illnesses" are also known to happen. Political prisoners are subjected to cruel and unusual punishment that amounts to torture.

Finally, when a prisoner or dissident dies and the Cuban government is responsible then the dictatorship engages in a campaign using both official propaganda outlets and agents of influence around the world to slander their memory and hold itself not responsible for their death. If necessary the dictatorship will manufacture "evidence" to makes its "case."

It is for that reason that human rights defenders and friends of freedom have an obligation to remember the truth and repeat it to others in order to defend the memory of men and women like Wilman Villar Mendoza who gave their lives in the cause of freedom.

If courageous men and women inside of Cuba suffer brutal beatings to nonviolently remember these martyrs to Cuban freedom then what is the excuse for those abroad to remain silent? Indifference before evil is not an excuse but a condemnation.

What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means "no difference." A strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punishment, cruelty and compassion, good and evil. Elie Wiesel, The Perils of Indifference