Brutal attacker of 56 year old woman in Cuba gets away with attempted murder

Man who attempted to murder dissident gets six years but has a pass to leave prison when he wants.

The man who did this to Sirley in Cuba is free to walk the streets today

 Cuban human rights defender, Sirley Ávila León, age 56, was gravely wounded in a machete attack on May 24, 2015 at 3:00pm by Osmany Carrión who had been "sent by state security thugs." She lost her left hand while raising it to block a machete blow to the head that would have surely killed her wielded by Osmany Carrión. Carrión continued the attack striking again at her head and she blocked the blow with her right arm which the machete cut deep and through the bone, breaking it. At the same time Osmany's wife grabbed the severed hand and threw it into a filthy pig pen contaminating it so that it could not be re-attached. The attack went on with further machete blows on both legs. A detailed breakdown of the event was posted previously on this blog, and is repeated here for one simple reason.

In Cuba where there is not an independent judiciary and all is subject to the whims of the dictatorship the nature of the attack and the "judicial process" involving this case did not charge Osmany Carrión with aggravated attempted murder but with the lesser charge of "bodily injury" and sentenced him to six years in prison. However he has a pass to enter and leave the prison during this time effectively leaving him free, and adding weight to the charge that the attack was engineered by state security. While the UN celebrates the Castro regime's treatment of women this is what is happening in Castro's Cuba today. On the day of the attack Osmany Carrión told her that he would decapitate her and that he would not spend much, if any, time in prison for what he had done to her and the Castro regime has made that prediction a reality.


Meanwhile artists and musicians languish in prison for their artwork and lyrics.

#RaiseYourVoice for Cuba's prisoners of conscience and victims of regime violence

Please #RaiseYourVoice

Amnesty International is circulating an Urgent Action for Cuban artist Danilo Maldonado, known as El Sexto, and there are only 5 days and 11 hours remaining with 864 letters already sent out of a goal of 1,200.  Amnesty International in Australia provided more information on El Sexto's plight:

Meet Danilo Maldonaldo Machado, popularly known as El Sexto.

Danilo is a Cuban graffiti artist who campaigns for human rights through artistic work. He’s now in prison without charge for peacefully exercising his freedom of expression.
In 2014 Danilo was arrested by Cuban police for transporting two pigs to an art show with the names of Cuban leaders – ‘Raúl’ and ‘Fidel’ – painted on them. Officials accused Danilo of “aggravated contempt”, claiming that painting the pigs disrespected the Cuban leaders of the Revolution. Danilo was then imprisoned under the country’s harsh laws.

This is an attack on freedom of expression and an attempt to silence political criticism.
Danilo continues to fight for freedom. He participated in two hunger strikes which were both cut short after officials allegedly assured him that he’d be released. This wasn’t the case. Danilo remains in prison and needs your help.

Danilo’s mother has asked Amnesty to help her son. Please stand up and demand his freedom.

The good news is that Danilo Maldonado's plight is resonating in the press with reports in the BBC, and the Amnesty International campaign for his release.

The bad news is that this is the tip of the iceberg with more than 300 arrests this past Sunday and three activists still jailed for addressing Pope Francis last month. Not to mention that Danilo is not the only artist behind bars in Cuba.

Maikel Castillo Pérez  stage name, El Dkano - Maikel Oksobo

On January 28, 2015, the rapper Maikel Castillo Pérez  stage name, El Dkano - Maikel Oksobo, was sentenced to a year in prison in Havana. He was targeted for having used music to express his dissenting political opinions. El Dkano was sentenced under a charge known as ‘peligrosidad predelictiva’ (‘dangerousness that is likely leading to a crime’), which is used to imprison dissidents for long terms. His defense attorney told a reporter from Diario de Cuba that prosecutors wanted the judge to sentence him to five years. The 31-year-old’s lyrics are known for criticizing the Castro regime. He once described his style as that of someone who “doesn’t make concessions with a system full of liars.”

It is of great importance not only to raise your voice for Cuba's prisoners of conscience but also for Cuba's dissidents who have been the victims of regime violence such as Sirley Ávila León who was the victim of a regime orchestrated machete attack on May 24, 2015 that led to the loss of her left hand and crippling machete blows to her right arm and both knees. There have been other attacks prior to this one targeting opposition activists.

Lastly, it is important to raise you voice and demand truth and justice in the extrajudicial killings of nonviolent activists such as Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante who were targeted and murdered by state security on July 22, 2012.

Dissident leader Laura Pollán died under suspicious circumstances four years ago today

“If we must give our own lives in pursuit of the freedom of our Cuba that it be what God wants.” - Laura Pollán, September 24, 2011

Laura Pollán February 13, 1948 – October 14, 2011

Four years ago today Cuban opposition leader and human rights defender Laura Pollán  died under circumstances which Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet described as "death by purposeful medical neglect."

Laura Inés Pollán Toledo was a courageous woman who spoke truth to power and protested in the streets of Cuba demanding an amnesty for Cuban political prisoners. A woman who had been a school teacher, before her husband was jailed for his independent journalism in 2003. Laura was a figure greatly admired both inside and outside of Cuba.

However when one dissents from the dictatorship in Cuba not only is their physical life in danger but their reputation is systematically slandered. The Castro regime claimed that she was a stateless "traitor." She became ill and died within the space of a week under circumstances that raise the question of foul play by the Castro regime. Following her death the dictatorship's official media began a campaign asserting that she was a common criminal.

 Laura Pollán became a dissident when her husband was imprisoned during the Black Cuban Spring of 2003 along with more than 75 other activists and civil society members. She was one of the founders of the Ladies in White and challenged the Castro regime on the streets of Cuba. Following brutal repression in an effort to prevent them from marching through the streets of Havana Laura Pollan directly and nonviolently challenged the regime: "We will never give up our protest. The authorities have three options — free our husbands, imprison us or kill us. Unfortunately beginning in 2010 a new and deadlier pattern of oppression presented itself with the extrajudicial death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

Today let us remember that Laura practiced what she preached and that was nonviolent resistance to tyranny.

They tried to silence 75 voices, but now there are more than 75 voices shouting to the world the injustices the government has committed. (2004)

"We fight for the freedom of our husbands, the union of our families. We love our men." (2005)
"They can either kill us, put us in jail or release them. We will never stop marching no matter what happens." (2010)

"We are going to continue. We are fighting for freedom and human rights.” (September 24, 2011)

"As long as this government is around there will be prisoners because while they've let some go, they've put others in jail. It is a never-ending story." (2011)

“If we must give our own lives in pursuit of the freedom of our Cuba that it be what God wants.” (September 24, 2011)

"We are not going to stop. If you have imprisoned our sisters thinking that we would give up, they are mistaken. We are very united (...) all the women's movements are very close." (October 2, 2011)

Celebrating Celia Cruz and her decision to live and sing in freedom

How the Castro regime sought to censor and punish Celia Cruz for living in freedom

Celia Cruz: The Queen of Salsa

In just seven days on October 21st the world will observe the 90th anniversary of the birth in Havana, Cuba of Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso better known as Celia Cruz. Last night Telemundo aired the first of an 80 part - novela of the life of the woman who would become known as the Queen of Salsa and "La Guarachera de Cuba". The first episode is available online. She is recognized around the world as an icon of music and in 2013 Google honored Celia on the 88th anniversary of her birth with a Google Doodle. In 2010 the United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp in her honor describing the Cuban artist as follows.

"A dazzling performer of many genres of Afro-Caribbean music, Celia Cruz (1925-2003) had a powerful contralto voice and a joyful, charismatic personality that endeared her to fans from different nationalities and across generations. Settling in the United States following the Cuban revolution, the “Queen of Salsa” performed for more than five decades and recorded more than 50 albums."  

However in Cuba the Castro regime continues to ban the music of Celia Cruz from the radio airwaves. She is not alone. There are other banned Cuban musicians of great importance. According to Shoot the singer!: music censorship today, a book edited by Marie Korpe states that there is increasing concern within the international music community that post-revolution generations are growing up without knowing or hearing these censored musicians and that this could lead to a loss of Cuban identity in future generations.The phrase cultural genocide is used to describe the "cultural revolution" of the 1960s and 1970s that blacklisted and censored scores of Cuban musicians and artists.

The above censorship is widely known, but not as well known is that when the mother of Celia Cruz was dying the Cuban musical icon was blocked by Fidel Castro from returning to Cuba to say goodbye to her mom or attend her funeral afterwards.  This practice still goes on today with Cuban dissidents in the diaspora barred arbitrarily from seeing their loved ones by the Castro regime.

Cuba under the Castros remains a totalitarian regime that has maintained a level of inflexibility that even 12 years after her death in 2003 and with relations "normalized" with the United States continues to censor the music of Celia Cruz. Women who think and speak freely in Cuba still suffer horrible consequences.

Hopefully that will soon change. In the meantime Celia's music and her legacy live on in Cuba on cassette tapes, CDs, DVDs, and USBs circulating in the Cuban underground.

 

UN Women Silent on Cuban Woman's Continuing Plight

The hypocrisy of the United Nations reaches a new level

Sirley Ávila: Reform minded official turned opposition activist mutilated

This blog entry taken from Panam Post Blog.

The Castro regime has a record that stretches back decades of threatening, brutalizing and murdering women who speak their minds and demand that human rights be respected in Cuba. Back on September 17, 2013 Panam Post published an OpEd explaining how the Castro brothers get a pass for terrorizing and killing women. Unfortunately the situation has gotten worse and since the December 17, 2014 announcement of normalized relations between Cuba and the United States has been accompanied by new accounts of regime violence against women in Cuba that have escalated in severity while at the same time the international community has been complicit in its silence.

Sirley Ávila León, an ex-delegate of the People’s Assembly (Poder Popular) of Majibacoa who joined the democratic opposition after she was driven out of her position trying to keep a school open in her community. Official channels ignored her and when she went to the international media she was removed from office. Following escalating acts of repression by state security the mother of two, Sirley Ávila León, age 56, was gravely wounded in a machete attack on May 24, 2015 at 3:00pm by Osmany Carrión who had been "sent by state security thugs" and that the aggression "was politically motivated." She suffered deep cuts to her neck and knees, lost her left hand and could still lose her right arm. Although Carrión was the principle assailant, his wife threw her hand into the mud compounding the injury. It was a coordinated attack. Sirley was sent home in this critical state without the proper medication. Five months later she remains in need of medical attention, completely incapacitated, demanding justice and denouncing irregularities in the judicial process against her assailant.


On September 2, 2015, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights requested the adoption of precautionary measures for Sirley Ávila León. "According to the application, submitted to the Commission by the Cuban Democratic Directorate, Ávila has been the object of harassment and threats that materialized in May of 2015, when the proposed beneficiary was the victim of a machete attack because of her work as a defender of human rights. After analyzing the allegations of fact and law submitted by the applicant, the Commission considers that the information reveals that Sirley Ávila León is in a serious and urgent situation, since her life and physical integrity are at risk."

In a democratic country Sirley would be a political leader in government representing her constituents but in Cuba she is a target of brutal repression. UN Women, the United Nations agency that claims that it is "for gender equality and women's empowerment" is promoting Raul Castro on it's twitter stream with the following tweet and image:

This ignores that the government in Cuba is a totalitarian dictatorship in which the rule of law is non-existent and that since 1959 the ultimate authority has resided in two brothers: Fidel and Raul Castro. Women in Cuban government structures have no real power other than to rubber stamp the decisions of the Castro brothers or face the consequences. UN Women should be helping women like Sirley Ávila León not legitimizing their oppressors.