Cuba: Releasing with one hand while crushing with the other

In through one door and out through the other.

Ermis Carbonell protesting to be allowed to finish his studies

 Less than a month after President Obama's and Raul Castro's simultaneous speeches announcing the normalization of relations, the release of three Cuban spies ( one serving a life sentence for murder), and the further loosening of sanctions the results are unsurprising.

On the one hand there is the high profile release of 53 political prisoners along with the high profile coverage of the repression meted out against a daughter of the nomenklatura who dared to try to organize a free speech happening in the Plaza of the Revolution.

On the other hand dissidents have been arrested and brutally beaten down to the point that teeth have been knocked out and bones broken, but since they are not sons or daughters of the revolutionary elite their suffering doesn't make the news. For example today over twitter the Christian Liberation Movement highlighted the plight of one of their members who had engaged in a peaceful protest (video) to demand the right to return to university to complete his studies. Unfortunately in Cuba the the regime says that the "universities are for revolutionaries" and if one is a dissident one no longer has a right to an education. Ermis was expelled in 2013 with only three classes remaining to complete his studies. The expulsion was politically motivated.

"Ermis Carbonell of Christian Liberation Movement in Santiago de Cuba detained for protesting because they won't allow him to finish his studies. He received a beating, and is detained in a motorized unit in Santiago charged with contempt. According to Christian Liberation Movement spokesperson Regis Iglesias: "Ermis was beaten in the Palace and they fractured one arm.They transferred him to Motorized. Reported the MCL Provincial Coordinator Marcos Diaz."

On January 10, 2014 over twitter Rosa María Payá Acevedo tweeted: "As releases are announced Yosvani Melchor is transferred to a maximum security prison." This young man who is developmentally disabled has been jailed in order to blackmail his mom into becoming an informant for state security against the Christian Liberation Movement.

Mother and her unjustly imprisoned son Yosvani

Last Thursday night (January 8th) or Friday morning (January 9th) Alberto Romero, a Cuban American attorney visiting family in Cuba, was killed. Circumstances surrounding his death remain murky at this hour but is cause for concern.

Alberto Romero killed in Cuba

Prior to that on December 26, 2014 the dissident Marcelino Abreu was arrested for wearing a change bracelet and was repeatedly kicked by state security who in the process knocked out a tooth and broke his nose. He was released on January 6, 2014.

Marcelino Abreu beaten bloody for wearing a bracelet

 The laws that outlaw the basic exercise of fundamental human rights have not been changed one iota and the prisons will continue to be filled with those who dissent, and their will be new prisoners of conscience. The climate of fear continues in Cuba under the current regime that the United States will later this month pursue normal relations with.

Cuban dissident and rapper Angel Yunier Remón Arzuaga, who on October 15, 2014 was sentenced to 6 years imprisonment in a sham trial. Angel was tear gassed and arrested on March 21, 2013, for criticizing the Castro regime and held since that time in conditions that can only be described as inhumane. He was finally released on January 8, 2015 and gave the following message:

“…I’m not really free yet, because our country is not yet free, but I am now alongside my children and my wife. I am here again, confronting the situation that all us Cubans have to face.”

Cuban dissident beaten and arrested for wearing a bracelet with the word change

Marcelino Abreu was arrested for wearing a change bracelet and was repeatedly kicked by state security knocking out a tooth and broke his nose.
 

Marcelino Abreu Bonora: Jailed for wearing change bracelet*

Marcelino Abreu Bonora released after threats and confinement in Nieves Morejon prison

Santa Clara, Cuba, January 7, 2015.

Taken from the Cuban Democratic Directorate.

The Cuban human rights activist Marcelino Abreu Bonora, who was arbitrarily arrested last December 26 in this city, beaten and taken to a detention center and later taken to the Nieves Morejon prison in Sancti Spiritus, was released yesterday evening on January 6, 2014.

"On December 26th I was assaulted by Félix Hernández, State Security captain of Department 21 when it was getting dark in the evening hours. He pulled the bracelet that I had in my left hand that says 'Change' and told me that I was counterrevolutionary and I replied that I was not counterrevolutionary that the ones who were counterrevolutionaries were Fidel and Raul who had made secret negotiations, who had deceived the Cuban people for 56 years. He told me that I didn’t need to talk about it and he went up gave me a jab with the right elbow, he ordered the patrol men to handcuff me.

They pushed me into the car and inside the it they sprayed me in the eyes as they drove me to the station," said Abreu Bonora via telephone to the Cuban Democratic Directorate. The activist added that he had been threatened by the military that they would return him to prison where he was released on October 24, 2014.

Marcelino also said that he was subjected to inhuman treatment from the moment of his arbitrary detention and was released after he made known his decision to declare an indefinite hunger strike.

"I shouted 'Down with Fidel, down with Raul', he attacked me again, they kicked me in the left breast, they hit me again, kicking me in the mouth knocking out one of my front and lower teeth, again they hurt my nasal septum twisted on the right side and I was bleeding most of the night from my mouth and septum. Then they started slapping me in the face and told me: 'impudent, thief, murderer, you are a counterrevolutionary'. I kept shouting 'Down with Fidel, down with the dictatorship', 'Long live human rights'," he explained.

Dozens of human rights activists and members of independent civil society have been arbitrarily arrested in the past three weeks, subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment and some are waiting to be processed to swell the ranks of Cuban political prisoners.

The Castro regime continues to imprison citizens who dissent with the official policy of the dictatorship.


 Photo taken by Ivan Hernandez Carrillo.

Update: Cuban political prisoner and hunger striker lies near death

"Marcelino Abreu was unjustly jailed for speaking his mind: Down with Fidel. Now he is on hunger strike for his freedom." - Marc Masferrer over twitter January 21, 2014

Marcelino Abreu Bonora

 Over twitter beginning at 9:44pm on January 23, 2014  and ending 11 minutes later at 9:55pm with the last of  five tweets the independent journalist and human rights defender Iván Hernández Carrillo made the following update on the health status of Marcelino Abreu Bonora: 

"Yesterday political prisoner Marcelino Abreu Bonora was visited by his wife in the National Hospital, where he is kept isolated in a serious state. Martha Velazquez said she saw her husband, Marcelino Abreu Bonora, the hunger striker, very yellow including the palms of his hands. Marta explains that Marcelino Abreu Bonora continues with low arterial blood pressure, headaches, almost fainting, and his voice is breaking when he tries to speak. Marcelino Abreu Bonora can no longer fend for himself, and since January 16 the regime doesn't allow his wife to even help him bathe. Hunger striker and political prisoner Marcelino Abreu Bonora worse than this recent photograph provided by Hablemos Press."

This update should raise concerns about the plight of this Cuban hunger striker whose condition has continued to deteriorate and as was reported back on January 19th is near death.