Please Take Urgent Action for Cuban Lady in White and prisoner of conscience Xiomara Cruz

Help save Xiomara de las Mercedes Cruz Miranda's life.

Xiomara de las Mercedes Cruz Miranda before and during her jailing.

Xiomara de las Mercedes Cruz Miranda is a Cuban dissident. member of the Ladies in White, a mother, and a prisoner of conscience. She was arrested on April 16, 2016 for speaking out during a human rights demonstration in Havana's Central park. She was placed on parole in January of 2018. She was re-arrested in mid-September 2018 under the charge of being "threatening." On September 19, 2018 she was tried and sentenced to one year and four months in prison. She was sent to a prison 400 kilometers from her home. This was an added hardship for her family to visit her, and keep an eye on her well being.

https://t.co/LO760yWxvn

En el video medico d sala T/Intermedia d hosp.Covadonga, en el parte del dia 7 de agosto 2019 a las 2pm. ,reconoce que @DamasdBlanco #UNPACU Xiomara Cruz es una cuestion política. #RevolucionEsRepresion en #Cuba #PresosPorQue en Cuba @ForoDyL .

— Angel Juan Moya (@jangelmoya) August 8, 2019

Xiomara was sent to a punishment cell for at least 10 days for speaking to her daughter over the phone. Apparently, officials did not like the content of their conversation.

Over the course of one year in custody of the Castro dictatorship her health has radically declined. Above and below are photos of rashes that appeared on her body in June that Cuban medical doctors in Ciego de Ávila claimed to be unable to diagnose. In mid-July she was returned to Havana to La Covadonga hospital.

On August 8, 2019 she was transferred to intensive care. Cuban dissident Angel Juan Moya has posted videos of interviews from August 6th and August 7th with doctors at the hospital. Family members are complaining that they are receiving differing diagnosis and her situation continues to worsen. Xiomara is intensive care and now doctors are saying that it could be lung cancer. A doctor refuses to update the family saying: "that he did not want to see those people."

Parte medico sobre estado d salud d presa política y x conciencia @DamasdBlanco #UNPACU Xiomara Cruz el dia 6-8-19 2pm.#RevolucionEsRepresion en Cuba #PresosPorQue en #Cuba @ForoDyLhttps://t.co/0GcEre84Ij

— Angel Juan Moya (@jangelmoya) August 8, 2019

Their is cause for great concern. Xiomara's condition is deteriorating, and one of the doctors raised the issue of a "political" question.  Healthcare in Cuba has a history of being subordinated to political considerations. The health of the patient is not the top priority.

Laura Pollán February 13, 1948 – October 14, 2011

Xiomara de las Mercedes Cruz Miranda may become the second Lady in White to be a victim of purposeful medical neglect. The first was Laura Inés Pollán Toledo, founding leader of the Ladies in White, who was a victim of a sad, tragic and unnecessary death on October 14, 2011.

This practice of politically motivated medical negligence is not just limited to members of the Ladies in White. Two other examples separated by twenty years demonstrates that this is a long term regime tactic to deal with dissidents in a manner that rises to the level of cruel and unusual punishment.

Sirley Avila Leon was denied adequate medical care in Cuba

On May 24, 2015 Sirley Avila Leon was the victim of a politically motivated machete attack carried out by Osmany Carriòn, with the complicit assistance of his wife, that led to the loss of her left hand, right upper arm nearly severed, and knees slashed into leaving her crippled. Following the attack Sirley did not receive adequate medical care and was told quietly by medical doctors in Cuba that if she wanted to get better that she would need to leave the country. She arrived in Miami on March 8, 2016 in a wheel chair unable to bend her legs, or close her remaining hand.

Sebastián Arcos Bergnes Born: 1931, Died: December 22, 1997

Sebastián Arcos Bergnes, a human rights defender and leader in the Cuban Committee for Human Rights, died from a case of purposeful medical neglect.

On January 13, 1992 the executive board of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights again issued a statement reaffirming their commitment to nonviolence and calling for dialogue with the Cuban government.

Sebastian Arcos Bergnes was detained on January 15, 1992 and charged with "enemy propaganda" and "inciting rebellion," he was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison. Sebastian was transferred to Ariza Prison in  Cienfuegos Province,  more than 130 miles from Havana, where he was imprisoned alongside dangerous criminals and systematically denied medical attention.

In 1993 the regime offered Sebastian a deal: He would be released immediately if he only agreed to leave the island for good. Sebastian rejected the deal, choosing prison in Cuba over freedom in exile.

After an international campaign that included his designation as an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience and a request by France Libertés, the organization founded by former French first lady Danielle Mitterrand, Sebastian Arcos was released in 1995.

A few weeks after his release, Arcos was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in the rectum, for which he had previously been denied medical care in prison. After a Cuban doctor was fired from his post for diagnosing Arcos, he traveled to Miami for further care. In 1996, Sebastián Arcos Bergnes testified before the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland.


Sebastian died on December 22, 1997 from the cancer that could have been easily diagnosed much earlier, and saved his life.

The fear is that a similar process is being carried out against Xiomara de las Mercedes Cruz Miranda. The international community and people of good will need to make their voices heard.

Xiomara Cruz, prisoner of conscience, Covadonga Hospital intensive care, Aug 8th

Sebastian Arcos Addresses Heritage Economic Freedom Forum: Engaging Latin America

What errors were committed by the Obama administration in formulating new Cuba policy.

 Today at Florida International University the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation held an  Economic Freedom Forum: Engaging Latin America. The last panel of the day focused on U.S. - Cuba policy. Below is the presentation of Sebastian Arcos Cazabon at the Freedom Forum:

Prisoner of Conscience Ariel Sigler Amaya: Before & After Cuban Prison

Body decimated, but spirit remains strong

"The story does not end here. We are going to press on in the struggle, until the last political prisoner has been freed, until we achieve freedom and democracy for the Cuban people."
- Ariel Sigler Amaya in interview with Agence France-Presse (AFP) shortly after arriving home


Ariel Sigler Amaya, an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience*, entered prison unjustly in 2003 a healthy athletic man and exited a Cuban prison today an emaciated paraplegic. His brother Guido Sigler Amaya, another prisoner of conscience, continues in prison serving an unjust 20-year prison sentence. Photographs taken today by Associated Press and Reuters as he arrived home are shocking:


Emaciated, in a wheelchair, and his legs (in the photograph below) nothing but skin and bones.


In the midst of a global conversation on Cuba and torture sparked by the withdrawal of an invitation to the UN expert on torture Manfred Nowak and his public comments along with UN Cuba Mission's coarse reply it is important to remember some concrete facts among the diplomatic theatrics and political spin:

1. There are hundreds of known political prisoners in Cuba and with laws such as "dangerousness" that locks people up because of their social class the number could be in the thousands.

2. They are enduring inhumane conditions and practices that amount to torture. As the pictures above attest.

3. Some prisoners have died as a result, others have been left crippled, their health compromised with illnesses acquired in prison, and others have died on hunger strike to protest conditions.


A prisoner of conscience is anyone imprisoned for the non-violent exercise of their beliefs. Independent journalists, human rights activists, and Project Varela petitioners currently imprisoned in Cuba are prisoners of conscience. According to Amnesty International, the human rights organization founded in 1961 a "prisoner of conscience" is someone imprisoned solely for the peaceful expression of their beliefs. The term was coined by Amnesty International’s founder, civil rights lawyer Peter Benenson. For example in South Africa, Steve Biko was identified by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience whereas Nelson Mandela was not. Amnesty has identified Cuban prisoners of conscience and repeatedly called for their release. Two historic examples pre-dating Amnesty International would be Mohandes Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Today, Cuba's Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet and Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi are two examples of prisoners of conscience.

The Dictatorship doth protest too much

It has no credibility

Danish student Joachim Løvschall extrajudicially executed by Cuban soldier on March 29, 1997

"Cuba does not need an objective evaluation 'of the situation in the country.' Cuba seeks no endorsement. In Cuba, there has never been a single case of extrajudicial execution or forcible disappearance. Our achievements in matters of penal justice and crime prevention are well recognized. Few countries can exhibit Cuba's results in the treatment of sanctioned people and their full reinsertion into society." Statement by Cuban U.N. mission in Geneva, June 9, 2010


The above paragraph is taken from a statement released by the Cuban government's diplomatic mission in Geneva and is in response to the special rapporteur's statement earlier in the day chastising the regime for not following through on the invitation they had extended to him on January 28, 2009.

First, Cuba desperately needs an objective evaluation of the overall situation in the country not just in the area of human rights (although that is a good place to start). The dictatorship in Cuba desperately wants to avoid an objective evaluation of its human rights record, with good reason. There have been objective evaluations over the years and they are not positive especially in the areas of civil and political rights, torture, and extrajudicial executions. Human Rights Watch in 1999 and again in 2009 presents detailed overviews. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has documented numerous atrocities and closely studied the Cuban legal system.

Secondly, the statement: "In Cuba,there has never been a single case of extrajudicial execution or forcible disappearance" is painfully untrue. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the IACHR, and the UN Human Rights Commission have documented cases.

One well documented case cited by the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions is the sinking of the tugboat 13 de Marzo, which took place on July 13, 1994 by government agents and led to the extrajudicial execution of 37 men, women and children. Interviews with the survivors and photos and names of the victims in the video below:



Another case is that of Joachim Løvschall, a Danish student studying Spanish at the University of Havana gunned down by an AK-47 wielding Cuban guard as he walked home. The body remained hidden for days. The shooter was never identified. Ten years after his son's extrajudicial execution, Christian Løvschall spoke at a parallel forum in Geneva Switzerland about what had happened.

Third, the claim that "Our achievements in matters of penal justice and crime prevention are well recognized" is perversely true. The Telegraph offers a succinct description: "regular beatings, humiliation and arbitrary punishment with long periods of solitary confinement in cramped cells with cement beds." International human rights organizations are barred from visiting the island and even the International Committee of the Red Cross has not had access to prisons in Cuba for over 30 years, but what has emerged is evidence of widespread torture. As the following survivor Omar Pernet Hernandez can attest to:




Others like Sebastian Arcos Bergnes were not so lucky. Systematically denied attention he died a short time after his release, but he was able to address the UN Human Rights Commission in 1996 and present the reality within Cuba's prisons from his own experience. His son, Sebastian Arcos Cazabon, outlines what happened to his father which has been described as death by medical neglect. Sebastian Arcos Bergnes was an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience.



The February 23, 2010 death of prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo while on a hunger strike protesting prison conditions and the subsequent efforts by the dictatorship to smear his name, intimidate, and assault members of his family indicates that Cuba not only needs an objective evaluation of the human rights situation in the country, but also solidarity with the Cubans on the island who have had their human rights systematically violated for 51 years, and especially those who are imprisoned.

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant." -Martin Luther King.