Showing posts with label human rights defender. Show all posts
Showing posts with label human rights defender. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Eleven years ago on February 23, 2010 prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo died on hunger strike in Cuba

"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 1967 - 2010
Orlando Zapata Tamayo was a human rights defender who was unjustly imprisoned in the Spring of 2003 and was tortured by Cuban prison officials and state security agents over the next six years and ten months. He died on February 23, 2010 following a prolonged hunger strike, aggravated by prison guards refusing him water in an effort to break his spirit. He is a victim of Cuban communism.

Cuban opposition leader Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, who was killed under suspicious circumstances on July 22, 2012, issued a statement the same day that Orlando died and appeared in a photograph holding up a photocopy of the martyred human rights defender name and image. 
"Orlando Zapata Tamayo, died this afternoon, February 23, 2010, after suffering many indignities, racist slights, beatings and abuse by prison guards and State Security. Zapata was killed slowly over many days and many months in every prison in which he was confined. Zapata was imprisoned for denouncing human rights violations and for daring to speak openly of the Varela Project in Havana's Central Park. He was not a terrorist, or conspirator, or used violence. Initially he was sentenced to three years in prison, but after successive provocations and maneuvers staged by his executioners, he was sentenced to more than thirty years in prison." 
Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas with photocopy image of Orlando Zapata Tamayo
  
Remembering Orlando Zapata
Orlando Zapata Tamayo was born in Santiago, Cuba on May 15, 1967. He was by vocation a brick layer and also a human rights activist, a member of the Movimiento Alternativa Republicana, Alternative Republican Movement, and of the Consejo Nacional de Resistencia Cívica, National Civic Resistance Committee. Orlando gathered signatures for the Varela Project, a citizen initiative to amend the Cuban constitution using legal means with the aim of bringing Cuba in line with international human rights standards.
 
Amnesty International had documented how Orlando had been arrested several times in the past. For example he was temporarily detained on 3 July 2002 and 28 October 2002. In November of 2002 after taking part in a workshop on human rights in the central Havana park, José Martí, he and eight other government opponents were arrested and later released. He was also arrested on December 6, 2002 along with fellow prisoners of conscience Oscar Elías Biscet and Raúl Arencibia Fajardo.  
 
Dr. Biscet just released from prison a month earlier had sought to form a grassroots project for the promotion of human rights called "Friends of Human Rights." State security prevented them from entering the home of Raúl Arencibia Fajardo, Oscar Biscet, Orlando Zapata Tamayo,Virgilio Marante Güelmes and 12 others held a sit-in in the street in protest and chanted "long live human rights" and "freedom for political prisoners." They were then arrested and taken to the Tenth Unit of the National Revolutionary Police, Décima Unidad de La Policía Nacional Revolucionaria (PNR)

Orlando Zapata Tamayo was released three months later on March 8, 2003, but Oscar Elias Biscet, Virgilio Marante Güelmes, and Raúl Arencibia Fajardo remained imprisoned. On the morning of March 20, 2003 whilst taking part in a fast at the Fundación Jesús Yánez Pelletier, Jesús Yánez Pelletier Foundation, in Havana, to demand the release of Oscar Biscet and the other political prisoners. Orlando was taken to the Villa Marista State Security Headquarters.

He was moved around several prisons, including Quivicán Prison, Guanajay Prison, and Combinado del Este Prison in Havana. Where according to Amnesty International on October 20, 2003 Orlando was dragged along the floor of Combinado del Este Prison by prison officials after requesting medical attention, leaving his back full of lacerations. Orlando managed to smuggle a letter out following a brutal beating it was published in April of 2004:
"My dear brothers in the internal opposition in Cuba. I have many things to say to you, but I did not want to do it with paper and ink, because I hope to go to you one day when our country is free without the Castro dictatorship. Long live human rights, with my blood I wrote to you so that this be saved as evidence of the savagery we are subjected to that are victims of the Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoners [movement]."*
On May 18, 2004 Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Virgilio Marante Güelmes, and Raúl Arencibia Fajardo were each sentenced to three years in prison for contempt for authority, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in a one-day trial. Orlando Zapata Tamayo would continue his rebelliousness and his non-violent resistance posture while in prison and suffer numerous beatings and new charges of disobedience and disrespect leading to decades added to his prison sentence in eight additional trials.

Protests for Orlando Zapata Tamayo continue
Eleven years have passed but the martyred Cuban human rights defender has not been forgotten. From the beginning the regime sought to put down and silence protests and acts of remembrance for him, but failed. In March of 2010 at the second Geneva Summit for Human Rights former prisoner of conscience Jose Gabriel Ramon Castillo testified to what had happened to Orlando Zapata. In Norway, regime agents became violent and created international controversy after a Cuban diplomat bit a young Norwegian-Cuban woman for trying to record her mom engaged in a protest remembering Orlando Zapata Tamayo in front of the Cuban Embassy in Oslo in May of 2010.

 
On September 30, 2010 the Canadian punk rock band I.H.A.D. released a song linking what happened to Orlando Zapata Tamayo to the indifference of Canadian tourists visiting Cuba asking the question: Where were you the day Orlando Zapata died? On May 10, 2012 the Free Cuba Foundation published a video accompanying the song, after receiving the band's permission, with images and song lyrics.

Rosa María Payá Acevedo remembers Orlando Zapata Tamayo in 2016.
 
On February 23, 2016 at the 8th edition of the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy Rosa María Payá gave the last presentation in which she remembered and honored the memory of Orlando Zapata Tamayo on the sixth anniversary of his passing. 

On 2/19/2018 twenty activists remember Orlando Zapata Tamayo
 
Four days prior to marking eight years to the day that Orlando Zapata died, activists inside Cuba took to protest in the streets with banners remembering the courageous and martyred human rights activist.
The Castro regime did all it could to eliminate the memory of this humble and good man. The dictatorship failed.

Special Mass for Orlando Zapata Tamayo at Our Lady of Charity on February 23, 2020

Later this month let us once again honor and remember the brick layer and human rights defender by writing about him, organizing vigils and protests, and continuing his work for human rights in Cuba.

*Source: "Queridos hermanos míos de la oposición interna de Cuba", escribió Zapata en su misiva, "tengo muchas cosas que decirles, pero no he querido hacerlo por papel y tinta, pues espero ir a ustedes un día cuando nuestra patria sea libre y sin dictadura castrista. Vivan los derechos humanos, con mi sangre les escribí, para que la guarden como parte del salvajismo de que somos víctima el presidio político Pedro Luis Boitel". - "Golpiza y celda tapiada para Orlando Zapata"  La Habana, 22 de abril 2004 (María López, Lux Info Press / www.cubanet.org  
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Thursday, March 7, 2019

Jailed leader of Cuban dissident group should be allowed to go free, UN panel finds

UN Watch Briefing
Prisoner of conscience Eduardo Cardet
GENEVA, March 7 — The Swiss non-governmental human rights group United Nations Watch announced today, in a written filing that will be circulated next week by the UN Human Rights Council ahead of its March 12th debate on human rights situations that require the world’s attention, that Cuba’s most famous political prisoner—Dr. Eduardo Cardet, leader of the Christian Liberation Movement—won a UN ruling calling for his release.
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, a quasi-judicial panel of five experts, upheld in full a petition filed by United Nations Watch, a leading voice for Cuban dissidents, and determined that Cuba is “arbitrarily detaining” dissident Dr. Eduardo Cardet, who has been imprisoned by the regime since November 30, 2016, for criticizing Fidel Castro.
In its Opinion no. 66/2018 (unofficial English translation here), the Working Group found that Cuba arrested Dr. Cardet without a legal basis. The UN panel called on Cuba to immediately release Dr. Cardet and grant him reparations.
The Working Group found that “the deprivation of liberty of Mr. Eduardo Cardet Concepción is arbitrary,” noting specifically that it contravened the following Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees: the right to be free from arbitrary arrest, the right to a fair trial, the right to presumption of innocence, freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, and freedom of association.
An independent and impartial UN body, the Working Group consists of experts from Australia, Benin, Mexico, South Korea and Latvia. Cuba argued that the arrest, imprisonment and trial of Dr. Cardet should be considered legal under domestic and international law. In reaching its decision, the Working Group upheld the legal arguments made by United Nations Watch and rejected all of Cuba’s arguments seeking to justify its imprisonment of Dr. Cardet.
“This is an important decision by the Working Group,” said United Nations Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer.
“The Cuban government holds onto power by suppressing democracy. It routinely punishes political dissent through an array of human rights abuses including arbitrary arrests, beatings and other cruel and inhuman treatment, and harassment of activists and their families.
Following its thorough review of UN Watch's submission on the facts, evidence and law, the Working Group has found that Cuba’s treatment of Dr. Cardet, a pro-democracy activist, violated his rights under international law. We now call on Cuba to honor the UN body’s decision, and to immediately release Dr. Cardet.”
 ___________
MORE INFORMATION
Highlights of the Working Group’s decision are as follows.
Concerning the legal basis for Dr. Cardet’s arrest, the Working Group concluded (at Paras 47-49):
In the present case, state security officials, without identifying themselves, arrested Mr. Cardet Concepción in a violent manner, without explanation. They did not show an arrest warrant, nor did they inform him of the existence of criminal charges against him. In addition, Mr. Cardet Concepción was not brought promptly before a judge. There was no independent judicial control of the detention. On the contrary, he was taken to a local police station, where he was beaten again and held incommunicado for nine days. He did not have access to a lawyer. He was denied visits and phone calls, his family was unaware of his whereabouts... In view of these considerations, in the absence of a warrant of arrest and subsequent incommunicado detention, lack of judicial control, legal, medical and family contact, the Working Group must conclude that there was no legal basis for the arrest, so that the detention is considered arbitrary under category I, being contrary to Articles 9 and 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Concerning the violation of Dr. Cardet’s rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, the Working Group concluded (at Paras 52-54):
In the present case, two days after Mr. Cardet Concepción made public statements against the former President of the Republic, in the peaceful exercise of his human rights, he was arrested on the street by officers of the State Security forces. Likewise, this detention was preceded by threats and harassment by official agents to the family of Mr. Cardet Concepción, who were told the authorities would arrest him for being counterrevolutionary. In addition, agents of the State Security forces have repeatedly threatened and harassed Mr. Cardet during his detention, both before and after his conviction, telling him that if he gives up his beliefs and opinions he will be released… In view of the foregoing, the Working Group considers that the Cuban authorities deprived Mr. Cardet Concepción of his freedom to exercise his rights to freedom of thought, conscience, opinion, expression, association and participation, recognized in Articles 18, 19, 20 and 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which makes it arbitrary according to category II.
Concerning the violation of Dr. Cardet’s due process rights, the Working Group concluded (at Paras 57-60):
In the opinion of the Working Group, the lack of communication during the first days of the arrest and the beginning of the trial, the lack of access to a lawyer, the ill-treatment and the inhuman conditions of detention, indicate that Mr. Cardet Concepción did not receive a fair trial with the guarantees of due process. The source also established that in Cuba the courts are subordinated to the executive and legislative branches, which are controlled by the Communist Party. The Working Group is aware that treaty bodies, of which Cuba is a party, have expressed concern about the lack of independence of the judiciary… The Working Group was convinced that the Cuban authorities seriously failed to observe international norms regarding the right to a fair, independent and impartial trial, which contravenes the provisions of Articles 9, 10 and 11 of the Universal Declaration of Rights Human, and makes the detention arbitrary according to Category III of the Methods of Work.
For more information about the case, see here.
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Friday, January 4, 2019

Top 12 Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter tweets of 2018

"History is nothing but assisted and recorded memory." - George Santayana 


These are the top tweets for each month of 2018 arranged in chronological order. George Santayana understood the importance of remembering the past in order to avoid repeating the same mistakes and injustices. This was the year of the Cuba UPR and victims of the regime speaking truth to power as it sought to carry out its fraudulent change. It was the year that the steady work of completely undermining democracy in Nicaragua finally brought forth the murderous assault of the regime as it clamped down its totalitarian cage on the people of Nicaragua. The year ended with a campaign to release political prisoners in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

January 2018


 February 2018
March 2018

April 2018

May 2018

June 2018


July 2018
August 2018

September 2018

October 2018


November 2018
December 2018











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Saturday, May 12, 2018

Cuba is a dictatorship that brutalizes blind dissenters: Time to hold it accountable

Note to UPR 30 and the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights: Cuba is a dictatorship.

Blind Rights Defender Juan Carlos Gonzalez Leiva
The dictatorship in Cuba systematically violates all human rights both in law and in action. Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes the right of all persons to to travel into and out of their own country. The regime in Cuba does not recognize that right and treats it as a priviledge to be granted or taken away at the whim of the dictatorship. The concerns raised by the Office of the High Commissioner calls attention to the problem but with diplomatic language that minimizes the true extent of the problem.

Will the Office of the High Commissioner speak out against the physical assault of Juan Carlos Gonzalez Leiva, a blind human rights defender, on January 9, 2014 at 10:30am?  Together with his wife, Tania Maceda Guerra, and six other activists in Ciego de Avila, his home town, he was distributing "Voz Avileña", a dissident publication. Juan Carlos described what happened next.
I carried in my hand a copy of the newsletter "The Avileña Voice." There was a very large state security operation and they demanded that we give them the newsletter. When I refused and we eight activists sat on the ground, and began to shout, " Freedom", "Long live human rights" and "Down with Fidel" military troops reinforcements arrived and they beat us up. We were taken by car to the First police headquarters. During the trip a police officer pulled my wife's hair and bit her hands. I responded to the police officer biting him and then the official gave me a savage beating to the point that it made ​​me lose consciousness. They hit me so many times that I have both the right foot and index finger of the left hand broken. I have aches and bruises throughout my entire body . To all the activists who were with me Junior Ortega Rivero, Daniel Camacho Marchena, Daniel Martínez, Alberto Pla Risco, Quintana Sarría and others that were with me, all were violently beaten and dragged away and were also detained. Without any explanation we were all released around 3:00pm in the afternoon.
Ignorance is not an excuse for the Human Rights Council. On September 16, 2014 Juan Carlos Gonzalez Leiva spoke before the Council and denounced the brutal beating he and the other activists suffered placing it in the larger context. Seven months later another Cuban human rights defender, Sirley Avila Leon, was the victim of a machete attack that cost her a hand and the use of both knees.

Allowing the Castro regime to operate with impunity is unacceptable and there needs to be a cost for the criminal actions taken.  Time to indict Raul Castro.
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Monday, January 22, 2018

Cuba: Further information: Prisoner of conscience attacked in prison: Dr Eduardo Cardet Concepción

Late last night posted information on the plight of Eduardo Cardet, including a brief statement by the spokesman of his organization, the Christian Liberation Movement. Saw good news today that Amnesty International had updated his case. Reproducing it below.


URGENT ACTION: PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE ATTACKED IN PRISON

By Amnesty International

On 19 December 2017, after being transferred from the Provisional Prison of Holguín to Cuba SI prison, three other prisoners attacked Eduardo Cardet, according to his wife. He is a prisoner of conscience who must be released immediately and unconditionally. 

On 19 December 2017, the afternoon after authorities transferred Dr Eduardo Cardet Concepción from the Provisional Prison of Holguín to Cuba SI prison in the same province, three other prisoners allegedly attacked him, according to his wife, Yaimaris Vecino. Prison authorities only informed his wife and family that same day that they would be transferring Eduardo Cardet to a different prison. They only permitted his family to see him for several minutes and did not provide the family with reasons for the transfer.

Yaimaris Vecino told Amnesty International that prison officials did not permit her to visit her husband after the attack until 15 January 2018, when she observed two circular scars to Eduardo Cardet’s abdomen. She stated that her husband told her that he had not received medical attention since the attack and was experiencing headaches and dizziness.

On 9 January, Eduardo Cardet’s sister lodged a complaint regarding the alleged attack with the Public Prosecutor in Havana, the capital. As of 19 January the family had not received a response, according to Yaimaris Vecino.

Eduardo Cardet is the leader of the pro-democracy movement Christian Liberation Movement (Movimiento Cristiano Liberación, MCL). He has been imprisoned in Holguín since his arrest on 30 November 2016, five days after the death of the former leader of Cuba, Fidel Castro. Prior to his arrest, Eduardo Cardet gave a number of interviews published in international media in which he was critical of the Cuban government.

Please write immediately in Spanish or your own language:
 
  • Calling on the authorities to release human rights defender Dr Eduardo Cardet immediately and unconditionally, as he is a prisoner of conscience, imprisoned solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression;
  • Urging them to ensure that, pending his release, he is provided with any medical care of his choosing; that he is not tortured or otherwise ill-treated; and that he is granted regular access to family and lawyers of his choosing;
  • Calling on them to investigate the alleged attack of Eduardo Cardet and to ensure that effective measures are put in place to ensure his safety and the security of prisoners at all times.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 5 MARCH 2018 TO:

President of the Republic
Raúl Castro Ruz    
Presidente de la República de Cuba
La Habana, Cuba  
Fax: +41 22 758 9431 (Cuba Office in Geneva); +1 212 779 1697 (via Cuban Mission to UN)
Email: cuba_onu@cubamission.com (c/o Cuban Mission to UN)
Twitter: @RaulCastroR
Salutation: Your Excellency

Attorney General  
Dr. Darío Delgado Cura       
Fiscal General de la República
Fiscalía General de la República        
Amistad 552, e/Monte y Estrella          
Centro Habana, La Habana, Cuba
Email: relaciones@fgr.cu    
Twitter: @FGR_Cuba
Salutation: Dear Attorney General

Minister of Justice
María Esther Reus
Ministerio de Justicia
Calle O # 216 E/ 23 y 25 Vdo. Plaza de la Revolución
La Habana, Cuba
Twitter: @CubaMinjus
Salutation: Dear Minister

Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country. Please insert local diplomatic addresses below:
Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date. This is the third update of UA 32/17. Further information: www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr25/6363/2017/en/

URGENT ACTION
prisoner of conscience attacked in prison

Additional Information

According to five witnesses who spoke to Amnesty International by telephone on the condition of anonymity, Eduardo Cardet was pushed off his bicycle and violently detained in the early evening of 30 November 2016 by at least four plain clothed and one uniformed police officer as he returned home after visiting his mother. According to his wife, who witnessed her husband’s detention with their two children, Eduardo Cardet is charged with attacking an official of the state (atentado). This offence is covered under Article 142.1 of the Criminal Code. One officer is alleging that Eduardo Cardet pushed him during his arrest. All witnesses who spoke with Amnesty International counter this allegation, and state that Eduardo Cardet was quickly and violently restrained by plain clothed officials, placed in handcuffs, and beaten, and had no opportunity for self-defence. The witnesses believe that Eduardo Cardet was arrested for his beliefs and ideas. Amnesty International was able to review a copy of the sentence at appeal emitted by the provincial court of Holguin. The sentence makes no mention of the original grounds for the arrest, suggesting the arrest was arbitrary. On 17 May, the Popular Provincial Court of Holguín (Tribunal Provincial Popular de Holguín) ratified in appeal the judgement handed down on 20 March sentencing Dr Eduardo Cardet Concepción to three years in prison.

The Christian Liberation Movement (Movimento Cristiano Liberación, MCL) is a prominent actor in the pro-democracy movement in Cuba. According to its website, it is a movement for peaceful and democratic change and respect for human dignity. It was founded in 1988 by Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, who became a visible figure of the Cuban political opposition, and four other activists. Amnesty International has documented harassment and intimidation of members of the MCL for decades. In 1991, after Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas presented a petition calling for a national referendum relating to constitutional reform, he had his home destroyed by over 200 people, said to be members of a Rapid Response Brigade. After Oswaldo Payá announced his intention to put himself forward as a candidate for deputy to the National Assembly for the municipality of Cerro, Havana, members of his organization were reportedly subjected to frequent questioning and short-term detention.

In an interview published on 16 September 2016 by ABC International, Eduardo Cardet stated: “Political activities are passed off as criminal offences such as inciting public scandal, contempt of or offences against the authorities, and the political police use these classifications to lock up dissidents" (Se disfraza la actividad política con hechos delictivos comunes, por ejemplo, escándalo público, desacato, atentado, figuras que utiliza la policía política para encarcelar a los disidentes).
 
Cuba is closed to Amnesty International and nearly all independent international human rights monitors.

Name: Dr Eduardo Cardet Concepción
Gender m/f: m

Further information on UA: 32/17 Index: AMR 25/7759/2018 Issue Date: 22 January 2018

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Update: Cuban prisoner of conscience Eduardo Cardet badly beaten, stabbed and unjustly imprisoned

Regis Iglesias Ramirez, a former Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, is currently the spokesman of the Christian Liberation Movement. This past Sunday, January 21, 2018 he sat down and gave a brief interview on the plight of  Eduardo Cardet Concepción, the national coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement. The interview is in Spanish but a summary of the information provided is reproduced below in English.

Eduardo Cardet of MCL badly beaten, stabbed, and unjustly imprisoned.
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 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.

Eduardo Cardet Concepción is a Cuban physician, human rights defender, and national coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL). He joined the MCL then headed by Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas in the early 2000s.  Eduardo was an active participant in various MCL initiatives aimed at achieving a nonviolent transition to democracy in Cuba. He was a manager of the Varela Project, the Heredia Project, The Peoples Path and  One Cuban, One Vote. Cardet held various responsibilities within the organization and was a member of the movement's coordinating council.

Following the extrajudicial killing of Oswaldo Payá  and Harold Cepero on July 22, 2012, the Christian Liberation Movement restructured its leadership and Eduardo Cardet was appointed national coordinator of the movement in November of 2014.

 
Due to his opposition activity Eduardo Cardet has been arbitrarily detained on several occasions. The last time he was taken prisoner by the Cuban political police was on November 30, 2016, shortly after the death of Fidel Castro. The MCL has denounced that on that occasion he was also badly beaten by Castro's state security agents. The beatings continued following his arrest in the detention center. 

On January 31, 2017 Amnesty International issued an urgent action and recognized Eduardo Cardet as a prisoner of conscience. Despite this status and the call for his immediate release, Cardet was sentenced to three years in prison on March 20, 2017 following a show trial in Cuba.  
Yaimaris Vecino, Cardet's wife:They badly beat up Eduardo in prison while he was handcuffed.
Eduardo Cardet Concepción was born in Holguin, Cuba on October 25, 1968. He is married to Yaimaris Vecino with two children, worked as a family doctor at the health center in the town of Velasco in Holguín province, where he lived.
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Thursday, February 23, 2017

7 years ago on February 23 after years tortured, Orlando Zapata Tamayo died on hunger strike

"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it." - Martin Luther King Jr.
Orlando Zapata Tamayo
Human Rights Defender

May 15, 1967 - February 23, 2010
Cuban prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo died on February 23, 2010 after years of torture and a prolonged water only hunger strike in which prison authorities over the course of more than two weeks on and off refused him water. 
    Following his death the Castro regime and its agents of influence sought to slander Orlando's memory. However, activists who knew Orlando had already spoken on the record as had Amnesty International.
     For example, on the same day Orlando Zapata died, Cuban opposition leader Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas in a heartfelt message explained the circumstances surrounding his untimely death: 
Orlando Zapata Tamayo, died on this afternoon, February 23, 2010, after suffering many indignities, racist slights, beatings and abuse by prison guards and State Security. Zapata was killed slowly over many days and many months in every prison in which he was confined. Zapata was imprisoned for denouncing human rights violations and for daring to speak openly of the Varela Project in Havana's Central Park. He was not a terrorist, or conspirator, or used violence. Initially he was sentenced to three years in prison, but after successive provocations and maneuvers staged by his executioners, he was sentenced to more than thirty years in prison.
     The slander campaign has failed because people of good will paid attention and refused to remain silent. In Canada, a punk rock band composed and played a song titled Orlando Zapata that placed his death in context. A video accompanying the song was edited by the Free Cuba Foundation. Orlando's death focused attention on Cuban prisoners of conscience and was a factor in their release between 2010 and early 2011.



Background

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

     Amnesty International had documented how Orlando had been arrested several times in the past. For example he was temporarily detained on 3 July 2002 and 28 October 2002. In November of 2002 after taking part in a workshop on human rights in the central Havana park, José Martí, he and eight other government opponents were arrested and later released. He was also arrested on December 6, 2002 along with fellow prisoners of conscience Oscar Elías Biscet and Raúl Arencibia Fajardo.  
     Dr. Biscet just released from prison a month earlier had sought to form a grassroots project for the promotion of human rights called "Friends of Human Rights." State security prevented them from entering the home of Raúl Arencibia Fajardo, Oscar Biscet, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Virgilio Marante Güelmes and 12 others held a sit-in in the street in protest and chanted "long live human rights" and "freedom for political prisoners." They were then arrested and taken to the Tenth Unit of the National Revolutionary Police, Décima Unidad de La Policía Nacional Revolucionaria (PNR), in Havana.
    Orlando Zapata Tamayo was released three months later on March 8, 2003, but Oscar Elias Biscet, Virgilio Marante Güelmes, and Raúl Arencibia Fajardo remained imprisoned. On the morning of March 20, 2003 whilst taking part in a fast at the Fundación Jesús Yánez Pelletier, Jesús Yánez Pelletier Foundation, in Havana, to demand the release of Oscar Biscet and the other political prisoners. Orlando was taken to the Villa Marista State Security Headquarters. 
     He was moved around several prisons, including Quivicán Prison, Guanajay Prison, and Combinado del Este Prison in Havana. Where according to Amnesty International on October 20, 2003 Orlando was dragged along the floor of Combinado del Este Prison by prison officials after requesting medical attention, leaving his back full of lacerations. Orlando managed to smuggle a letter out following a brutal beating it was published in April of 2004:
My dear brothers in the internal opposition in Cuba. I have many things to say to you, but I did not want to do it with paper and ink, because I hope to go to you one day when our country is free without the Castro dictatorship. Long live human rights, with my blood I wrote to you so that this be saved as evidence of the savagery we are subjected to...

    On May 18, 2004 Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Virgilio Marante Güelmes, and Raúl Arencibia Fajardo were each sentenced to three years in prison for contempt for authority, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in a one-day trial. Orlando Zapata Tamayo would continue his rebelliousness and his non-violent resistance posture while in prison and suffer numerous beatings and new charges of disobedience and disrespect leading to decades added to his prison sentence in eight additional trials.

The importance of remembrance
     Friends of freedom all too often are on the defensive explaining who and what they are against. The lives of courageous nonviolent activists such as Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, Harold Cepero Escalante, Laura Inés Pollán Toledo and the four men murdered in the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down who were martyred by the Castro dictatorship should be remembered and told to others. The enemies of freedom do not like to have such heroes remembered and honored.  For example on May 24, 2010 in Oslo, Norway a Cuban diplomat attacked and bit a 19 year old Cuban-Norwegian girl who was filming her mother's protest on behalf of Orlando Zapata Tamayo outside of the Cuban embassy. The whole episode was a public relations disaster for the Castro dictatorship in Norway.

Take action
     People of good will around the world who wish to remember can join in a 24-hour water-only fast starting at 3 p.m. on Feb. 23, the day and time that Orlando Zapata Tamayo died on hunger strike followed by a silent vigil the following day from 3:21 p.m. to 3:27 p.m. to correspond with the times Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario De La Peña and Armando Alejandre Jr. were shot down on February 24th.
    Fasting for 24 hours is a limited way to step, albeit briefly and incompletely, into Orlando Zapata Tamayo's shoes. Beginning the fast at 3:00pm on February 23 and completing it on February 24 at 3:00pm just in time to honor and remember the four members of Brothers to the Rescue seems an appropriate way to pay homage. 
     They all demonstrated with the lives they led and by how they died that the Bible passage, John 15:13 is as relevant as ever: "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." Please use all the means at your disposal through social media and word of mouth to let others know about them.
 
The price of indifference
     The failure of solidarity with Cubans in the island has led to the Castro regime not only increasing repression at home but also projecting itself elsewhere in the Americas and sadly now Venezuelans are also dying or being killed for defending freedom in their country.
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