"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together’. THIS IS THE LIBERATION WHICH WE ARE PROCLAIMING."
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (2002)
Razones Ciudadanas 5 from Yoani Sanchez on Vimeo.
Today, May 15, 2011 marks a double anniversary: the birth of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a Cuban human rights activist turned martyr, in Holguin, Cuba in 1967 and the one week anniversary of the extrajudicial death of Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia on May 8, 2011 following a brutal beating three days earlier by political police of the dictatorship in Cuba.
Five days earlier another important anniversary in the history of the democratic opposition was observed when on May 10, 2002 Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas, Regis Iglesias Ramirez and Antonio Ramón Diaz Sánchez (from left to right in above picture) turned in 11,020 signatures on a petition demanding reforms that would see human rights respected in Cuba and fundamental freedoms restored known as the Varela Project to the Cuban regime. Both Regis Iglesias Ramirez, Antonio Ramón Diaz Sánchez and dozens of other activists involved in the Varela Project were imprisoned in the March 18, 2003 crackdown known as the Black Cuban Spring and spent seven long years in prison and now suffer exile in Spain.
Reports indicate that in Santiago, Cuba dissidents seeking to honor and remember Orlando Zapata Tamayo were beaten in an act of repudiation while relatives had their home surrounded and were denied the right to visit their loved one's tomb. At the same time just one week ago on the same day that he died Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia was buried. At this funeral a Cuban pastor spoke about the life of the Cuban activist and the circumstances surrounding his death.
"The failure of Soviet communism confirms that humans motivated by lofty ideals are capable of inflicting great suffering with a clear conscience. But communism's collapse also suggests that under certain conditions people can tell the difference between right and wrong. The embrace and rejection of communism correspond to the spectrum of attitudes ranging from deluded and destructive idealism to the realization that human nature precludes utopian social arrangements and that the careful balancing of ends and means is the essential precondition of creating and preserving a decent society."
"We created the Oslo Freedom Forum to establish a platform where human rights activists lacking international support and recognition could share ideas on a global scale with world leaders and others capable of affecting change," says Thor Halvorssen, founder of the Oslo Freedom Forum.
This morning the forum will be launched with a press conference with speakers, featuring Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee; Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi; Burmese rights activist Zoya Phan; Ghanaian economist George Ayittey; Palestinian doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish; Nobel Laureate Jody Williams; South African LGBTI rights activist Busi Kheswa; Bahraini activist Maryam al-Khawaja; and Canadian free speech champion John Ralston Saul. Also leading the discussion will be secretary-general of Amnesty International Norway John Peder Egænes.
Later this evening, Shirin Ebadi and Mayor of Oslo Fabian Stang will speak at the opening reception of the forum at Oslo City Hall. The audience will include hundreds of international guests from the realms of advocacy, business, academia, politics, media, and technology.
This year’s forum will tap into the transformative power of social media to extend the reach of the event and its power to affect change. The 2011 conference will be live-streaming at www.OsloFreedomForum.com, and video segments of all panel discussions and individual speaker presentations will be immediately archived and available on the website following the event. Online viewers are encouraged to interact with panelists during discussion sessions by emailing questions to questions@oslofreedomforum.com or by following the forum on Twitter at @OsloFreedomFrm and using the hashtag #OFF2011.
The Oslo Freedom Forum is a program of the Human Rights Foundation, a New-York based nonprofit organization committed to defending human rights globally, with a special focus on the Americas. The forum is made possible in part by the City of Oslo, Color Line, Fritt Ord, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, and the Thiel Foundation, in partnership with Amnesty International Norway, Civita, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, and PLAN Norway. For more information on the forum and for a full list of participating speakers, please visit www.OsloFreedomForum.com.
HRF is an international nonpartisan organization devoted to defending human rights in the Americas. It centers its work on the twin concepts of freedom of self-determination and freedom from tyranny. These ideals include the belief that all human beings have the rights to speak freely, to associate with those of like mind, and to leave and enter their countries. Individuals in a free society must be accorded equal treatment and due process under law, and must have the opportunity to participate in the governments of their countries; HRF’s ideals likewise find expression in the conviction that all human beings have the right to be free from arbitrary detainment or exile and from interference and coercion in matters of conscience. HRF does not support nor condone violence. HRF’s International Council includes former prisoners of conscience Vladimir Bukovsky, Palden Gyatso, Václav Havel, Mutabar Tadjibaeva, Ramón J. Velásquez, Elie Wiesel, and Harry Wu.
Dissident Guillermo Fariñas Hernández told AFP: "There is not the slightest doubt that there was a cause and effect, and that Soto's death was related to the beating he was given," and went on to add that "If we do not do something, so that the government changes its stand toward peaceful protesters, we are going to be reporting even more deaths." Yoani Sanchez also describes a trend of increasing violence by police and that complaints against are silenced by fear. Juan Wilfredo prior to his death denounced the threats made against his person by agents of the dictatorship and you can hear him below (in Spanish):
"An official from State Security told me that those 15-days that you supported Coco (Guillermo Fariñas Hernández) will have consequences and be prepared for them." They placed agents outside of his home who spied on him and threatened him. His "support" of Fariñas was to join him in solidarity on a hunger strike demanding the release of unjustly imprisoned Cuban prisoners of conscience following the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo on February 23, 2010.
Juan Wilfredo Soto left behind two children and their mom. He was a member of the Opposition Central Coalition and was known as "The Student." He was a former political prisoner who had served 12 years in prison. His mother, who suffers from a bad hip, buried her son on Mother's Day. Pictures of Juan Wilfredo Soto's family members provided by Yoani Sanchez through twitter taken below:
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