On Apr 29, 9:44 am, PL <pl.nos...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Dan Christensen wrote:
> > On Apr 28, 6:41 am, PL <pl.nos...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> >> Dan Christensen wrote:
> >>> On Apr 27, 2:01 pm, chris <christiane.stock...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> >>>> Mr. Christensen,
> >>>> Could you please share with us your views on freedom of speech and
> >>>> human rights in Cuba.
> >>>> Please: no ravings and rantings about other countries.
> >>> Cubans are free to speak to their minds.
> >> No they are not.
> >> These are the repressive laws limiting their freedom of speech
>
> > [snip]
>
> > Please post even one example of anyone being jailed simply for
> > expressing their opinions -- for complaining about the government or
> > anything else.
>
> easy:
>
> cases like:
>
> Ismael Acosta Duarte, del mismo Partido permaneci=F3 detenido 3 horas en
> la Unidad Policial de Santiago de las Vegas el d=EDa 31 de enero y el 1
de=
> febrero, el jefe de sector lo amenaz=F3 de prisi=F3n con un =EDndice de
> Peligrosidad Social. Ya hab=EDa sido citado, amenazado e interrogado el
> d=EDa 19 de enero cuando tuvo que comparecer al mencionado sector y lo
> culparon de regar pegatinas con la palabra "Cambio" impresa.
>
> La aparici=F3n reiterada de carteles antigubernamentales en Palma
Soriano,=
> Santiago de Cuba, fu=E9 la causa del arresto de m=E1s de 20 disidentes
ent=
re
> los d=EDas 4 y 15 de enero, 2008, algunos permanecieron varios d=EDas y
> hasta semanas en Versalles, sede de Instrucci=F3n Policial de la
Seguridad=
> del Estado en el territorio. sus nombres son:
>
> Raudel =C1vila Losada, Daniel Nieto Garc=EDa, Juan Carlos Parada
Mil=E1n,
> Wuilber Parada Mil=E1n, Mar=EDa Julia Parada Mil=E1n, Agust=EDn Alonso
Par=
ada,
> Robert Di=E9guez Labrada , Antonio Vladimir Rosell=F3, Geovani Vidal
Ortiz=
,
> Orlando Guti=E9rrez L=F3pez, Eduardo P=E9rez Mart=EDnez, =C1ngel Lino
Isaa=
c Luna,
> Fabricio Bustamante Trujillo, Juan Carlos Figueroa Cal=E1, Rub=E9n
Adrobe =
de
> Armas, Jos=E9 Batista Falc=F3n, Alex=E1nder Garc=EDa Biscet, Roberto
Rojas=
> Peradartas, Lu=EDs Daniel Ram=EDrez Perera, Aleixi Fern=E1ndez, Enrique
Bo=
nne
> Mart=EDnez, Jos=E9 =C1ngel Cede=F1o =C1vila, Elizardo L=F3pez e Israel
Fol=
gar.
>
If they were honestly interested in voicing their opinions and calling
for change, the international media has recently been full of accounts
of an ongoing and vigorous debate on just this at all levels of Cuban
society. The above actions went beyond simply expressing of opinions,
however. This was a concerted propaganda campaign. Who organized the
campaigned? Who financed it? We know that the Wa****ngton and Miami
have a long history attempting to subvert the will of the Cuban
people.
> a=FAl Rivero is banned from publi****ng in Cuba, his native country,
> because he is viewed as a dissident. He was one of 10 journalists to
> sign the 1991 Carta de los Intelectuales, a petition urging Fidel Castro
> to free prisoners of conscience. His exit and re-entry permits have been
> consistently denied.
> Ra=FAl Rivero is one of Cuba's best-known dissident journalists and a
> figurehead of the country's beleaguered independent press. He has faced
> relentless harassment from Fidel Castro's communist regime and its
> security agency since leaving the state-controlled press in 1988 because
> of growing disillusionment with Cuba's political system.
> Rivero was born in 1945 in Mor=F3n, Camag=FCey, in central Cuba. He was
> among the first generation of journalists trained at Havana University's
> School of Journalism after the 1959 revolution, and he co-founded the
> satirical magazine Caim=E1n Barbudo in 1966. He worked as Moscow
> correspondent for the government news agency, Prensa Latina, from 1973
> to 1976 before returning to Cuba to head the agency's science and
> culture service.
> Rivero resigned from the National Union of Cuban Writers in 1989 and
> made a formal break with the regime two years later when on June 2,
> 1991, he signed the famous Carta de los Intelectuales (Intellectuals'
> Letter), a petition calling on Castro to free prisoners of conscience.
> Of the 10 signatories, he is the only one still living in Cuba. Rivero
> abandoned official journalism in 1991, denouncing it as "fiction about a
> country that does not exist."
> In 1995 Rivero founded CubaPress, one of a handful of independent, and
> illegal, news agencies set up by dissident journalists in order to
> provide an alternative to Cuba's state-owned media. Like the country's
> other 40-odd journalists working outside the state media, Rivero is
> viewed as a political dissident and cannot publish or broadcast in Cuba.
> Instead, he sends his work abroad for circulation on the Internet and in
> U.S. and European publications, although publi****ng abroad can result in
> a jail sentence for spreading "enemy propaganda."
> Rivero's movements have been restricted, and he has been routinely
> threatened, detained and interrogated by state security forces. He has
> also been harassed by members of El Sistema Unico de Vigilancia y
> Protecci=F3n, a Cuban vigilante group tied to the Communist Party.
> Officials have told him he can leave Cuba as long as he does not try to
> come back, but, because he is determined to pursue his profession in
> Cuba, his exit and re-entry permit applications have been consistently
> denied.
> Rivero is also a poet of renown, and he is regional vice chairman for
> Cuba of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) Committee on Freedom
> of the Press and Information.
> A recipient of numerous press freedom awards, including the IAPA Grand
> Prize for Press Freedom, Rivero was most recently awarded the 1999 Maria
> Moors Cabot Prize of Columbia University's Graduate School of
> Journalism. He could not accept it in person because he was refused
> permission to travel abroad.
> In a February 1999 piece entitled "Journalism Belongs to Us All," Rivero
> reflected on the work of journalists trying to re****t freely on
> developments in Cuba. "Nobody, no law can make me take on the mentality
> of a gangster or other criminal simply because I re****t the arrest of a
> dissident or bring to light the prices of the basic alimentary products
> for survival in Cuba or edit a note saying that it seems like a disaster
> to me that more than 20,000 Cubans leave their homeland each year for
> exile in the United States or that hundreds of others desperately try to
> get away to some place, any place. Nobody can make me feel like a
> criminal, an enemy target or a turncoat or any of the other name-calling
> nouns the government uses to try to degrade or humiliate us. I am merely
> a man who writes. One who writes in the country where I was born."
>
[snip]
Nothing here about this guy being jailed for simply expressing his
opinions. He was eventually jailed, however, not being a "dissident,"
but for being an illegal paid agent of a foreign regime -- also a
crime punishable by fiens and imprisonment in the US. I understand
this di$$ident of yours is now living in comfortable exile in Spain.
But thanks for confirming that you cannot give a single example of
anyone being jailed for simply expressing their opinions.
> >>> On human rights in general, allegations against Cuba look like the
> >>> proverbial Sunday school picnic
> >> (snip)
>
> >> so torture, extra-judicial killings, democide and politicide are a
> >> "Sunday School Picnic for you.
>
> > Again, the crimes of your political masters (snip)
>
What Mr. Lobbyist snipped for obvious reasons:
Again, the crimes of your political masters and their allies, make
allegations against Cuba, even taken at face value, look like a Sunday
school picnic in comparison. For example, the only accounts "torture"
in Cuba (outside the US naval base at Gitmo anyway), seem to be
nothing more that the usual scuffles between prison staff and unruly
prisoners that you will find anywhere. Nothing like the well
do***ented cases (AI and others) of the widspread use of systematic
torture by your political masters and their allies these days.
BTW, we are STILL waiting for you to even comment on -- never mind
condemn -- these crimes of your political masters. With this tacit
sup****t of murder and torture, along with your well known enthusiasm
for genocidal trade sanctions, it is easy to imagine the reign of
terror you would unleash on the Cuban people if you ever had the
chance again.
> Unlike you I have no masters.
[snip]
Very evasive, Mr. Lobbyist. Please address the above issues; namely,
the relatively minor allegations against Cuba compared to the crimes
of your political masters. Until you are man enough to do so, do not
expect a reply from me on this matter.
Dan
Visit my CUBA: Issues & Answers website at
http://www.netcom.ca/~dchris/Cuba=
FAQ.html
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