Fact Sheet on February 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue Shoot down

 “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”― John Adams, Boston Massacre trial (1770)

February 24, 1996 shoot down was an act of state terrorism that blew two civilian aircraft out of the sky with air to air missiles while in international airspace after regime planned the act months beforehand with its espionage network in the United States.
 
 FACT 1: By definition: Terrorism is the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear)

Source: Wordnet Search http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=terrorism  


FACT 2: Cuba is responsible for violating the right to life (Article I of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man) to the detriment of Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario De La Peña, and Armando Alejandre, who died as a result of the direct actions of its agents on the afternoon of 24 February 1996 while flying through international airspace.

Source: Inter-American Commission on Human Rights September 29, 1999 Report on the Merits http://www.cidh.org/annualrep/99eng/Merits/Cuba11.589.htm

FACT 3: Cuba is responsible for violating the right to a fair trial (Article XVIII of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man) to the detriment of the relatives of Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario De La Peña, and Armando Alejandre, in that to date the Cuban authorities have not conducted an exhaustive investigation with a view toward prosecuting and punishing the perpetrators and have not indemnified those same relatives for the damage they suffered as a result of those illicit acts.

Source: Inter-American Commission on Human Rights September 29, 1999 Report on the Merits http://www.cidh.org/annualrep/99eng/Merits/Cuba11.589.htm

FACT 4: In Alejandre v. Republic of Cuba, 996 F.Supp. 1239 (S.D.Fla. 1997), a federal district court awarded the families of three of the four occupants of the “ Brothers to the Rescue” planes shot down by Cuba in 1996 a total of $187.7 million in damages against Cuba.

Source: Lawsuits Against State Supporters of Terrorism: An Overview by Jennifer K. Elsea  
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RS22094.pdf

FACT 5: WASP spy network was involved. One of the “illegal officers” (Gerardo Hernandez) was convicted of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder based on his role in the February 24, 1996, shoot-down of two unarmed civilian aircraft in international airspace by Cuban Air Force jet fighters, which resulted in the deaths of four people, three of them U.S. citizens.

Source: Department of Justice on Obama Commutations https://www.justice.gov/d9/pages/attachments/2017/08/30/commutation_grants_-_december_15_2014.pdf

FACT 6: Brothers to the Rescue had spotted and saved thousands of rafters in the Florida Straits and was engaged in such a mission on that day. The one plane that skirted the boundary briefly was the only one to return. The other two were shotdown miles away from Cuba’s boundary having never entered or touched it on that day and the planes had been in contact with the Cuban tower throughout the flight.

Source: ICAO Resolution on February 24 shootdown 
http://www.icao.int/icao/en/nr/1996/pio199606_e.pdf

FACT 7: On July 26, 1996 the United Nations Security Council: "Noting that the unlawful downing of two civil aircraft on 24 February by the Cuban Air Force violated the principle that States must refrain from using weapons against airborne civil aircraft, the Security Council this afternoon condemned such use as being incompatible with the rules of customary international law "

Source: ICAO Resolution on February 24 shootdown 
http://www.icao.int/icao/en/nr/1996/pio199606_e.pdf

FACT 8: Ana Belen Montes, the US intelligence community's top analyst on Cuban affairs had throughout a sixteen-year career at the Defense Intelligence Agency sent the Cuba intelligence service sensitive and secret information and helped to shape US opinion on Cuba. Investigation against her was triggered by her odd behavior before and after the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down. On September 21 2001 Ana Belen Montes was arrested and subsequently charged with Conspiracy to Commit Espionage for the government of Cuba. Montes eventually pleaded guilty to spying, and in October, 2002, she was sentenced to a 25-year prison term followed by 5 years of probation.

Source: True Believer: Inside the Investigation and Capture of Ana Montes, Cuba's Master Spy http://www.amazon.com/True-Believer-Inside-Investigation-Capture/dp/1591141001

FACT 9: On December 27, 2010 and again in a January 19, 2011 clarification the defense of Cuban spy-master Gerardo Hernandez acknowledged that "there was overwhelming evidence that the 1996 shoot-down of two Brothers to the Rescue planes occurred in international airspace, not Cuban territory."

Source: The Miami Herald: Cuban spymaster now claims Brothers to the Rescue shooting was outside Cuban airspace by Jay Weaver December 27, 2010  https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-2010-12-27-fl-cuba-spy-20101227-story.html

FACT 10: On December 17, 2014 President Barack Obama commuted Gerardo Hernandez’s two life sentences and returned him along with two other spies jailed for crimes in the United States to Cuba where they were received with a hero’s welcome in what is an immense propaganda victory for the Castro regime.

Source: Department of Justice on Obama Commutations
http://www.justice.gov/pardon/obama-commutations#dec152014 

FACT 11:  Netflix settled a defamation lawsuit in brought by Jose Basulto of Brothers to the Rescue, who accused the streamer of falsely portraying him as a terrorist and drug trafficker in Olivier Assayas’ political spy thriller Wasp Network.

Source: Netflix Settles Defamation Suit Brought By Cuban Exiles Over Spy Thriller ‘Wasp Network’ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/netflix-settles-defamation-suit-brought-cuban-exiles-wasp-network-1235806098/

 

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*

 On Feb 23, 2010, prison officials tortured Orlando Zapata to death.

 

Fact #1 Orlando Zapata Tamayo was murdered by Cuban government officials on February 23, 2010.

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 had been 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 2010 at least six Cuban political prisoners died while on hunger strike: Roberto López Chávez , Carmelo Cuadra Hernández , Pedro Luis Boitel, Olegario Charlot Pileta, Enrique García Cuevas and Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

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]


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

Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy 2025: Dissidents from Afghanistan, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Sudan, Tibet, Russia and Venezuela to Spotlight Abuses at 17th Geneva Summit

#GenevaSummit2025 #RaiseYourVoice

Post taken and adapted from the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy.

GENEVA, February 17, 2025 — Leading dissidents and courageous activists worldwide will gather in Geneva, Switzerland, on February 18, 2025, for the Annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy at the Centre International de Conférences Genève.

The Summit, hosted by a coalition of over 30 human rights organizations, will showcase the voices of the world’s bravest human rights defenders, many of whom have suffered torture and unjust imprisonment. The event will also provide a vital platform to family members of political prisoners who are struggling to free their loved ones.

Featured speakers include:

• Reza Pahlavi, Crown Prince of Iran.

• Garry Kasparov, human rights activist, promoter of democracy, and former World Chess Champion.

• Vladimir Kara-Murza, Russian dissident and politician who survived two poisoning attempts.

• Evgenia Kara-Murza, activist and wife of formerly jailed Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza

• Edmundo González is the president-elect of Venezuela.

• Osiris Puerto Terry is a victim of brutality by the Cuban regime, shot twice at the 11J protests. 

• Sebastien Lai, democracy activist and son of the pro-democracy media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai.

• Rahima Mahmut, Uyghur human rights activist, translator, and singer.

• Nazanin Afshin-Jam is an Iranian-Canadian human rights and democracy advocate.

• Massouda Jalal, Former Afghan Minister of Women’s Affairs and the first woman to run for President of Afghanistan.

• Husna Jalal, Exiled Afghan women’s rights activist and the daughter of Massouda Jalal.

• Assita Kanko, Belgian Member of the European Parliament, writer, and women’s rights activist.

• Betlehem Isaak, Swedish-Eritrean writer and daughter of Dawit Isaak, the longest arbitrarily detained journalist in the world.

• Times Wang, Human rights lawyer and the son of Chinese political prisoner Wang Bingzhang.

• Namkyi, exiled Tibetan activist and former political prisoner.

• Tirad Badawi, son of Raif Badawi, an iconic figure of freedom of expression in Saudi Arabia.

• Nguyen Van Trang, Vietnamese democracy activist and victim of transnational repression.

Speakers are available for interviews before the event and more speakers are set to be announced soon. For a full list of speakers, please see our media kit. For media inquiries or interview requests, contact media@genevasummit.org.

The annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy assembles hundreds of brave dissidents, human rights activists, diplomats, journalists, and student leaders, shedding light on pressing global human rights issues. It offers a platform for activists, former prisoners, and heroes to share their struggles for democracy. The Summit draws hundreds of attendees and garners extensive media coverage worldwide from major media outlets, including CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, Le Monde, and TIME magazine.

Admission to this year’s Geneva Summit is free and open to the public, but registration is mandatory.

Hate speech laws, not free speech, facilitated the rise of the Nazis in Germany. Fact checking Face the Nation.

Let me begin by making an admission of bias. I am a free speech absolutist, and was recently interviewed on the topic, and it is available online. Earlier today on Face the Nation, CBS news correspondent Margaret Brennan made a disturbing claim, that although correctly challenged and rebutted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, needs closer examination. Below is the transcript that begins at 12 minutes and 12 seconds into the interview.

 

 

 

CBS News senior foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Brennan: "Well, he [ Vice President J.D. Vance ] was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide, and he met with the head of a political party that has far-right views and some historic ties to extreme groups. The context of that was changing the tone of it. And you know that, that the censorship was specifically about the right."

Secretary of State Marco Rubio: "Well, I have to disagree with you. No, no, I have to disagree with you. Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide. The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal, because they hated Jews and they hated minorities and they hated those that they – they had a list of people they hated, but primarily the Jews. There was no free speech in Nazi Germany. There was none. There was also no opposition in Nazi Germany. They were a sole and only party that governed that country. So that’s not an accurate reflection of history.

I also think it’s wrong – again, I go back to the point of his speech. The point of his speech was basically that there is an erosion in free speech and in tolerance for opposing points of view within Europe, and that’s of concern because that is eroding – it’s not an erosion of your military capabilities. That’s not an erosion of your economic standing. That’s an erosion of the actual values that bind us together in this transatlantic union that everybody talks about. And I think allies and friends and partners that have worked together now for 80 years should be able to speak frankly to one another in open forums without being offended, insulted, or upset. And I spoke to foreign ministers from multiple countries throughout Europe. Many of them probably didn’t like the speech or didn’t agree with it, but they were continuing to engage with us on all sorts of issues that unite us.

So again, at the end of the day, I think that people give all – that is a forum in which you’re supposed to be inviting people to give speeches, not basically a chorus where everyone is saying the exact same thing. That’s not always going to be the case when it’s a collection of democracies where leaders have the right and the privilege to speak their minds in forums such as these."

First, Weimar Germany had modern-like hate speech laws and vigorously enforced them but it did not have the desired effect. Making the Nazis hate speech illegal and outlawing their publications raised their profile and helped them gather more support. The New Yorker on February 14, 2015 in the article "Copenhagen, Speech and Violence" interviewed Flemming Rose, the foreign editor of the Danish daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten who set the record straight:

"Weimar Germany did have hate-speech laws, and they were applied quite frequently. The assertion that Nazi propaganda played a significant role in mobilizing anti-Jewish sentiment is, of course, irrefutable. But to claim that the Holocaust could have been prevented if only anti-Semitic speech and Nazi propaganda had been banned has little basis in reality. Leading Nazis such as Joseph Goebbels, Theodor Fritsch, and Julius Streicher were all prosecuted for anti-Semitic speech. Streicher served two prison sentences."

The outcome of silencing hate speech is not what those who advocate for it would expect as Rose continued to explain:

"Rather than deterring the Nazis and countering anti-Semitism, the many court cases served as effective public-relations machinery, affording Streicher the kind of attention he would never have found in a climate of a free and open debate. In the years from 1923 to 1933, Der Stürmer [Streicher's newspaper] was either confiscated or editors taken to court on no fewer than thirty-six occasions. The more charges Streicher faced, the greater became the admiration of his supporters. The courts became an important platform for Streicher's campaign against the Jews. In the words of a present-day civil-rights campaigner, pre-Hitler Germany had laws very much like the anti-hate laws of today, and they were enforced with some vigor."

When violence erupts in a society where the rule of law exists, it must not be tolerated, but dealt with an expeditious manner through the judicial system. However, where the poisonous tropes of anti-Semitism, and hatred against the Jewish people arise, it must not be censored by the government, but challenged by people of good will in the battle of ideas to expose both its intellectual and moral bankruptcy. 

Hate speech has Marxist origins that are in opposition to free expression. Perversely, it claims that language can be violence to censor speech while at the same time defending physical violence as justified. When you outlaw speech and drive it underground you imbue it with power and credibility it does not deserve. 

This approach in Wiemar Germany weaponized hate speech laws against the Nazis that created a backlash that helped them take power, and once in power free speech was completely eliminated in Germany.  

Ms. Brennan's claim on Face the Nation was not just wrong, but diametrically opposed to what actually happened, and a disservice to her audience.

The Fight for Free Speech in Cuba and the United States

 In case you missed it.

Text taken from the Free Speech Forward podcast

"Welcome to today’s episode of the Free Speech Forward podcast, a conversation between Joia, Chris, and John Suarez, Executive Director at the Center for a Free Cuba. John shares his journey as a human rights advocate, discussing the importance of free speech particularly in the context of Cuba. He describes his early experiences with censorship, the historical repression in Cuba, and the need for regime change to restore free speech. The conversation also touches on the cultural decline of free speech in the U.S. and the courage required to speak out against oppression."

Find out more at: https://cubacenter.org/