"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)
More attacks in Cuba and similar attacks now in China
A State Department official told CBS News on June 8, 2018 that two more individuals from the U.S. embassy in Havana were undergoing medical evaluation, and that they could be suffering from the same type of injuries that affected 24 diplomats and family members between late 2016 and August of 2017. Equally disturbing reports have emerged in June of 2018 that U.S. diplomats in Beijing, China have suffered the same injuries along with unusual sounds.
Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas: February 29, 1952 – July 22, 2012
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in posthumously honoring Oswaldo Payá with the Truman Reagan Medal of Freedom is bearing witness, continuing the demand for justice, and demonstrating solidarity with Cubans seeking to live in freedom. Oswaldo Payá Sardiñaswas murdered together with Harold Ceperoon July 22, 2012 by a regime that feared his civic and nonviolent message that spoke truth to power and endangered their plans for a fraudulent transition that is now underway that seeks to entrench another generation of the Castro dynasty in absolute power in Cuba.
Rosa Maria Payá and Ofelia Acevedo accept the Medal of Freedom
Yesterday Oswaldo's daughter, Rosa Maria Payá, and widow Ofelia Acevedo received the Medal of Freedom on his behalf. The ceremony began with presentations by Lee Edwards and Marion Smith of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Rosa Maria continues her father's work in the Cuba Decide initiative.
Lee Edwards and Marion Smith of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
Today, his successor in the Christian Liberation Movement, Eduardo Cardet is an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience and has been jailed since November 30, 2016. Past recipients of the award include: H.E. Mart Laar, Hon. Natan Sharansky, Chen Guangcheng, Hon. Lech Wałęsa, Pope John Paul II, H.E. Václav Havel, Wei Jingsheng, Elena Bonner, and Lane Kirkland. Below is an excerpt from the ceremony.
Cuba: Family of prisoner of conscience denied visits
, Index number: AMR 25/8537/2018
Cuban authorities have suspended family visiting rights of human rights defender, Dr Eduardo Cardet, for six months as punishment for his family’s activism on his case, according to his wife. He is a prisoner of conscience who must be released immediately and unconditionally.
On 26 May 2018, the head of the Cuba SI prison in Holguín, Cuba, informed the family of Dr Eduardo Cardet Concepción that his rights to family visits have been suspended for six months on account of the complaints that his family have made to the international press and other human rights mechanisms.
Yaimaris Vecino, his wife, told Amnesty International that when she and her children and Eduardo’s mother tried to visit Eduardo they could not see him. Authorities verbally informed the family that Eduardo´s visiting rights had been suspended. According to her, Eduardo is also typically allowed to make calls to his family each Tuesday. On Tuesday 5 June, he did not call, suggesting he was also denied access to his regular phone call.
Eduardo is the leader of the pro-democracy movement Christian Liberation Movement (Movimiento Cristiano Liberación, MCL). He has been imprisoned in Holguín since his arrest on 30 November 2016, five days after the death of the former leader of Cuba, Fidel Castro. Prior to his arrest, Eduardo Cardet gave a number of interviews published in international media in which he was critical of the Cuban government.
Under international law, prisoners have the right to communicate with the outside world, in particular to receive visits from their families and lawyers, and to access adequate health care. Any restriction on this right, must be necessary and proportionate to achieve its aim, or may amount to an infringement of the right to private and family life. Such rights are fundamental safeguards against other human rights violations, including torture or other ill-treatment.
Please write immediately in Spanish or your own language:
Calling on the authorities to release human rights defender Dr Eduardo Cardet immediately and unconditionally, as he is a prisoner of conscience, imprisoned solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression;
Urging them to ensure that access to his family is immediately reinstated and that he is allowed regular contact with his family and the outside world, as well as access to lawyers and medical care of his choosing.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 19 JULY TO:
President of the Republic
Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez
Presidente de la República de Cuba
La Habana, Cuba.
Fax: +41 22 758 9431 (Cuba Office in Geneva); +1 212 779 1697 (via Cuban Mission to UN, New York)
Email: cuba_onu@cubamission.com (c/o Cuban Mission to UN)
Salutation: Your Excellency / Su Excelencia
Ministry of Interior
Vicealmirante Julio César Gandarilla Bermejo
Ministro del Interior
Ministerio del Interior, Plaza de la Revolución. La Habana, Cuba.
Fax: + 53 7 855 6621 + 53 7 8301 566 (or +1 212 779 1697 - via Cuban Mission to UN)
Email: correominint@mn.mn.co.cu
Salutation: Dear Minister / Señor Ministro.
And copies to:
Movimiento Cristiano de Liberación (MCL)
Email: info@oswaldopaya.org
Twitter: @oswaldopaya
Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country.
Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date. This is the fourth update of UA 32/17. Further information: www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr25/7759/2018/en/
Additional Information
According to five witnesses who spoke to Amnesty International by telephone on the condition of anonymity, Eduardo Cardet was pushed off his bicycle and violently detained in the early evening of 30 November 2016 by at least four plain clothed and one uniformed police officer as he returned home after visiting his mother. According to his wife, who witnessed her husband’s detention with their two children, Eduardo Cardet is charged with attacking an official of the state (atentado). This offence is covered under Article 142.1 of the Criminal Code. One officer is alleging that Eduardo Cardet pushed him during his arrest. All witnesses who spoke with Amnesty International counter this allegation, and state that Eduardo Cardet was quickly and violently restrained by plain clothed officials, placed in handcuffs, and beaten, and had no opportunity for self-defence. The witnesses believe that Eduardo Cardet was arrested for his beliefs and ideas. Amnesty International was able to review a copy of the sentence at appeal emitted by the provincial court of Holguin. The sentence makes no mention of the original grounds for the arrest, suggesting the arrest was arbitrary. On 17 May, the Popular Provincial Court of Holguín (Tribunal Provincial Popular de Holguín) ratified in appeal the judgement handed down on 20 March sentencing Dr Eduardo Cardet Concepción to three years in prison.
The Christian Liberation Movement (Movimento Cristiano Liberación, MCL) is a prominent actor in the pro-democracy movement in Cuba. According to its website, it is a movement for peaceful and democratic change and respect for human dignity. It was founded in 1988 by Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, who became a visible figure of the Cuban political opposition, and four other activists. Amnesty International has documented harassment and intimidation of members of the MCL for decades. In 1991, after Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas presented a petition calling for a national referendum relating to constitutional reform, he had his home destroyed by over 200 people, said to be members of a Rapid Response Brigade. After Oswaldo Payá announced his intention to put himself forward as a candidate for deputy to the National Assembly for the municipality of Cerro, Havana, members of his organization were reportedly subjected to frequent questioning and short-term detention.
In an interview published on 16 September 2016 by ABC International, Eduardo Cardet stated: “Political activities are passed off as criminal offences such as inciting public scandal, contempt of or offences against the authorities, and the political police use these classifications to lock up dissidents" (Se disfraza la actividad política con hechos delictivos comunes, por ejemplo, escándalo público, desacato, atentado, figuras que utiliza la policía política para encarcelar a los disidentes).
Cuba is closed to Amnesty International and nearly all independent international human rights monitors.
Name: Dr Eduardo Cardet Concepción
Gender m/f: Male
Further information on UA: 32/17 Index: AMR 25/8537/2018 Issue Date: 07 June 2018
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." - Milan Kundera
Tonight on the 29th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre we gathered by the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, DC and at 8:00pm began a vigil for all those killed. Survivors gathered and gave their testimony.
We listened to Fang Zheng, who lost both his legs after they were crushed by a Chinese tank 29 years ago. Last month, like tonight, he was introduced by Yang Jianli, another survivor of Tiananmen at the Oslo Freedom Forum.
Tonight I listened to Cui Jian's song, Piece of Red Cloth, that he played for protesters during the 1989 Tiananmen protests, it remains a powerful song today.
In Hong Kong over a 115,000 people gathered in a candlelight vigil in remembrance of those killed on June 4, 1989 in China.
Following
the June 4, 1989 crackdown and massacre on June 5th one man stood up to a line of tanks involved in the Tiananmen Square
slaughter to express
his moral outrage and blocked them. At the same time it is important to
remember that the driver in that lead tank refused to run over the
protester. Both individuals are heroes and both their fates remain
unknown.
The 2004 Frontline Documentary Tankman explores the significance of this act, and attempted to discover what happened. Now Initiatives for China has a campaign underway to petition the Chinese government to reveal the truth of what happened to the two Tiananmen tank men. Please sign the petition to find out what happened to the tank men.
The truth of Beijing's June 1989 massacre declassified
Before the massacre: Chinese youth gather in Tiananmen Square in June of 1989
Two weeks prior to the Tiananmen Square massacre then Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping observed: “Two hundred dead could bring 20 years of peace to China.” A recently declassified British diplomatic cable reveals that "at least 10,000 people were killed in the Chinese army's crackdown on
pro-democracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in June 1989." This blog has remembered the events of those terrible days over the years and the continuing repression in China today. Agence France Press reported some of the horrors contained in the diplomatic cable:
The
document, made public more than 28 years after the event, describes
injured girls being bayoneted, bodies being ground up by armoured
vehicles and human remains being flushed into the sewers. "Minimum
estimate of civilian dead 10,000," the then British ambassador Alan
Donald said in the secret telegram to London seen by AFP at Britain's National Archives.
Chinese military cracking down in June of 1989 in Beijing.
"The
27 Army APCs [armoured personnel carriers] opened fire on the crowd
before running over them. APCs ran over troops and civilians at 65kph
[40 miles per hour].”
"Students understood they were given one hour to leave square, but after
five minutes APCs attacked. Students linked arms but were mown down.
APCs then ran over the bodies time and time again to make, quote ‘pie’
unquote, and remains collected by bulldozer. Remains incinerated and
then hosed down drains."
"Army troops had used dum-dum bullets and snipers shot many civilians
on balconies, street sweepers etc for target practice. "
"Army ordered to spare no one. Wounded girl students begged for their lives but were bayoneted.
A three-year-old girl was injured, but her mother was shot as she went to her aid, as were six others.”
"1,000 survivors were told they could escape but were then mown down by specially prepared MG [machine gun] positions."
"Army
ambulances who attempted to give aid were shot up, as was a
Sino-Japanese hospital ambulance. With medical crew dead, wounded
driver attempted to ram attackers but was blown to pieces by anti-tank
weapon."
"Army officer shot dead by own troops, apparently
because he faltered. Troops explained they would be shot if they hadn’t
shot the officer. "
"Minimum estimate of civilian dead 10,000."
The nature of the Chinese communist regime has not changed and its cruelty continues to the present day, but so does the heroic resistance of many Chinese.
Last year, on July 13, 2017, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo died of "multiple organ failure" while still under the custody of the Chinese communists. Friends and family expressed concern that he had not received proper medical care. The nonviolent dissident, scholar and prisoner of conscience was arrested on June 23, 2009 and charged
with “inciting subversion of state power” for co-authoring Charter 08,
a
declaration calling for political reform, greater human rights, and an
end to one-party rule in China. Still imprisoned from the June 2009
arrest he was sentenced to 11 years in prison on December 25, 2009
following a political show trial. Liu Xiaobo was told by prison authorities on October 9, 2010 that he had won
the Nobel Peace Prize. When his wife Liu Xia visited him in prison the prisoner of conscience told her: “This is for the lost souls of June 4th.” Dedicating the prize to the demonstrators killed in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. Liu Xia remains under house arrest in China, but there are campaigns underway to obtain her freedom.
Meanwhile in Washington, DC the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation will hold a candlelight vigil on June 4th from 8:00pm to 9:00pm at the Victims of Communism MemorialMassachusetts Ave NW & New Jersey Ave NWWashington, DC, 20001United States in observance of this terrible anniversary.
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