Free Gorki: Cuban rocker taken from his home in Havana at noon today by the police

Spread the word. Help free an artist!

On the 21st anniversary of the August 5th freedom uprising in Havana, Cuba punk rocker Gorki Aguila is taken from his home by the police at 12 noon. He is also the author of a song dedicated to the uprising titled El Maleconazo.

Please spread the word on this courageous artist and activist. It is the best way to keep him safe and to obtain his freedom.

Update: The good news is that Gorki was freed around 4:00pm and that international press picked up the story of his detention the same day. The bad news is that he has been threatened by Cuban officials that if he continues to support the Ladies in White on Sundays and attend opposition meetings at Gandhi Park he will no longer be allowed to travel outside of Cuba. This is how State Security said it to the punk rocker: "he who invites you to visit another country will have to come to look for you in a motorboat" to smuggle him out of the country. Gorki's response to the events of today and threat issued:  

"They violate all your rights one after another: the right to march peacefully, to freedom of expression, right to travel, arbitrary arrest. It is incredible all that they do in just one arrest."

 Further proof that the so-called travel reform of 2013 is cosmetic and freedom of travel remains  non-existent and subject to the arbitrary whims of the dictatorship.

15-year old young woman stabbed repeatedly for defending Ladies in White

Berenice Héctor González,age 15, following the attack (Diario de Cuba)

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.

According to Diario de Cuba, the attacker, Dailiana Planchez Torres, is the daughter of a captain of the political police in the town of Cienfuegos. The Cuban Democratic Directorate interviewed Berenice and she offers a breakdown of what happened.


Berenice had asked for Daliana to stop insulting The Ladies in White, of which her aunt, Belkis Felicia Jorrín Morfa, is a member.

As a result, Berenice was repeatedly stabbed in the face, neck, breast and legs.  She received 66 stitches for her injuries.

Berenice Héctor González (Diario de Cuba)

Berenice Héctor González (Diario de Cuba)

Berenice Héctor González (Diario de Cuba)

Her attacker remains free.

People of good will need to denounce this atrocity and demand that Berenice's attacker be held accountable. 


Information and text taken from Capitol Hill Cubans and Uncommon Sense

Never Forget: Cuban human rights defender died on May 8, 2011 from beating received by Castro agents

Juan Wilfredo Soto García died on May 8, 2011 from a beating he received 3 days earlier by agents of the Castro regime.  Today begins the first of three dates to be observed over the next seven days of great importance to Cuba.

Juan Wilfredo Soto García beaten to death by Castro agents

 
On Thursday May 5, 2011 at approximately 9am, two national police officers reportedly approached Juan Wilfredo Soto García in Leoncio Vidal Park, asked him for his ID and then asked him to leave the park. After refusing to comply and protesting verbally against the expulsion, he was allegedly cuffed with his hands behind his back then beaten with batons.

Juan Wilfredo Soto García was arrested and detained at a police station, then hospitalized later that day. He was released from the hospital the same afternoon only to return the following day, complaining of severe back pain. Juan Wilfredo was then admitted to the Intensive Care Unit and died in the early hours of Sunday morning, May 8, 2011.He died on Mother's Day.



Juan Wilfredo Soto García's mother speaks about the loss of her son (In Spanish) 

A local source told Amnesty International that, by chance, he met Soto García as he was going to the hospital on May 5th. According to the source, Soto García said "I just got a beating in the park with batons and I’ve got a very sore back. These people killed me." Hospital sources have reportedly stated he died from acute pancreatitis, a condition which can be triggered by abdominal trauma and commonly causes severe back pain. Juan Wilfredo Soto García, 46, belonged to the Central Opposition Coalition (Coalición Central Opositora) and the previously unrecognized opposition organization Foro Antitotalitario Unido, (United Anti-totalitarian Forum) and according to Amnesty International Juan Wilfredo "had previously been imprisoned for 12 years for his political activities."


Prior to his beating and death, Juan Wilfredo Soto García described threats made against his life by Cuban state security agents (In Spanish).

Parallel to the Cuban dissident's death, an effort to deny both his past human rights activism; the circumstances surrounding Juan Wilfredo's extrajudicial killing and the dictatorship's complicity by an extensive propaganda campaign combined with  the blunt intimidation of the family of the victim.  Amnesty International called for an investigation into his death which over a year later has not been conducted.  The Cuban dictatorship has sought to deny Juan Wilfredo Soto García's status as a former political prisoner and human rights defender in order to portray him as a common criminal. They've done it both before with numerous victims of the regime and after Juan Wilfredo's death with two later regime victims: Ladies in White founder, Laura Pollán who died under mysterious circumstances on October 14, 2011 and  Cuban dissident Wilmar Villar Mendoza who died on hunger strike on January 19, 2012. It is a standard operating procedure of totalitarian regime's like the one operating in Cuba. Not only do they physically kill you but also slander and attempt to marginalize your importance and if possible make you a nonperson.

In addition to Amnesty International, 12 former Cuban prisoners of conscience from the 2003 Black Cuban Spring met on Saturday, June 4, 2011 and petitioned the Cuban regime for an independent investigation into the May 8, 2011 death of Juan Wilfredo Soto García in a document called The Declaration of El Roque. Others continue to badly beaten and denied adequate medical care in Cuba and their lives remain at risk. It is for that reason and the continuing demand of justice for Juan Wilfredo Soto García that we must never forget.

Political Police summon Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet to police station tomorrow

"Cuba is a police state. Government agents spy on and harass anyone advocating for human rights. They beat and imprison anyone seeking peaceful political change." -Oscar Elías Biscet, March 20, 2012 in the Wall Street Journal

Political police at Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet's home today

Update: Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet tweeted from Cuba at 3:07 pm on March 23, 2012 (one day after political police went to his home with a summons for today at 9:00am ): "I refuse to go to the police station. The police are not for suppressing humanistic ideas but to protect the citizen."

Two days after the Wall Street Journal published his essay on the Pope's upcoming visit to Cuba, Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet is paid a visit today at his home in Havana. Elsa Morejon tweeting at 11:50am March 22, 2012 from Cuba: "Police are in my house; bring summons for Oscar." Moments later the above photo appears of Oscar Elias Biscet with two political police at his home followed by a photo of the "official summons" for tomorrow March 23, 2012 at 9:00am below.

Official summons delivered by political police today to Dr. Biscet

Amnesty International in their March 22, 2012 report said that the human rights "situation has further deteriorated with a steady increase in the number of arbitrary detentions." However the same report cites that this repression is constantly being challenged generating thousands of detentions. The power of twitter and the internet to break down the wall of censorship erected by the totalitarian regime in Cuba is one of the tools in evidence here that also provides proof that resistance is underway in Cuba. In breaking the silence and also offering images along with text opposition activists such as Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet and his wife Elsa Morejon find a measure of protection in the scrutiny visited on agents of the communist totalitarian regime in Cuba.

Oscar Elías Biscet and Elsa Morejon in Cuba 2012