SUNRISE IN HAVANA: 2010-02-28

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Six Cuba political prisoners plan fast to mark "black spring" anniversary

Six Cuban political prisoners this week called on the world to join them in fast and prayer from March 12 to March 31 to mark the seventh anniversary of the "black spring" crackdown, which concluded with their imprisonment.

In a statement, the prisoners say their demonstration is not for themselves but for all of Cuba. Their hope, their faith is that by joining together in common cause and common action, the day of Cuba's freedom will be nearer.

The six prisoners are:

Oscar Biscet González

Julio Gálvez Rodríguez

Ricardo González Alfonso

Normando Hernández González

Régis Iglesias Ramírez

AngelMoya Acosta

Two Cuban dissidents released from jail

Two Cuban dissidents have been released from jail after completing their prison terms, according to reports posted at Payo Libre:

Deisy Talavera López, a member of the Marta Abreu Feminist Movement, was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison in 2008 on charges of "attacking" and "disrespect" after she posted on the door of her home a poster expressing support for Cuban political prisoner. Talavera, 39, was released from prison on Feb. 26.
Ramón Velázquez Toranzo, an independent journalist, was released Jan. 19, after serving a three-year term for "social dangerousness." Velázquez, 54, was imprisoned after attempting along with his family to walk across Cuba to denounce the Castro dictatorship's human rights record and to show support for the country's political prisoners.
Sources-(Payo Libre)
(Uncommon Sence)

Assassination Attempt on the life of Honduran Reporter Karol Cabrera

The Honduran journalist Karol Cabrera was seriously wounded and her companion Joseph Ochoa an entertainment journalist was killed do to gunshot wounds received in yesterday during an attack which occurred at 7:50 pm, while driving home after a visit to the presidential house where she signed a contract to work on state television 8, National Television of Honduras, to begin airing yesterday.

The journalist had died due to more than 20 bullets in the neck, thorax and abdomen, while Cabrera had at least three bullet wounds in her arms and her right side.

A daughter of Karol Cabrera was killed on 16 December last year.

The attackers fired into the vehicle in which the young pregnant woman traveling with other people, "two of whom were injured," said Orlin Cerrato, police spokesman.

Cabrera leads a program where members criticized the administration of former President Manuel Zelaya and his followers, which has brought threats, as it was reported by the journalist.

Source-La Tribuna)

(La Prensa)

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Oscar Elias Biscet speaks about Zapata Tamayo and calls the Castro brothers murderers

(Radio Martí) - From the prison "Combinado del Este", in Havana, the prisoner of conscience Oscar Elias Biscet Gonzalez, expressed grief and shock over the death of opposing member Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who he considered a courageous defender of freedom for Cuba.

According Biscet, Zapata embodies the inspiration of a people to claim the fight against the Castro regime.

The peaceful protester, was sentenced in 2003 to twenty-five years behind bars, adding that his "magnanimous act," Zapata was equal to the great heroes of Cuba.

The activist, awarded the Medal of Freedom awarded to former U.S. President George W. Bush said that Zapata died and lived in one of the concentration camps of the Castro regime. Regime which, in turn, he said, has been an official policy of genocide planned on two groups of people: political opponents and people of the black race.

"Zapata Tamayo had to suffer a double portion of this cruel discrimination for his humanistic ideas and being a person of the black race," Biscet who, in his labor as dissident work.was noted for his opposition to abortion, specifically with respect how disproportionately it is performed in Cuba.

Biscet blamed the government of Raúl Castro for Zapata's death, saying that since his arrival in prison, Zapata suffered the most cruel treatment, abuse and torture that led to a hunger strike until death.

"The government of Raúl Castro Poured all their hatred, racial discrimination and torture till his death. The death is just extra judicial murder," said Biscet. "Even after such lamentable event they continued by humiliating him with false testimonies."

The human rights activist, concluded that "imperialism Castro - Communist, murdered Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

"I just need to repeat to the Castro brothers with exclamation points: "murderers, murderers, murderers" reaffirmed Biscet.

Source-(Radio Marti)

Guillermo Fariñas, taken to hospital after losing conciousness

Cuban dissident journalist Guillermo Fariñas has now been transferred to a hospital in the province of Santa Clara, Cuba, for loosing consciousness, after holding a hunger and thirst for eight days in protest over the death of prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata.

Licet Zamora, spokesman for the opposition, reported that Fariñas was transferred to the Provincial Hospital near Castro Asnlado Miliary 10.45 (16.45 Peninsular Time) after being knocked unconscious while the doctor Ismael Iglesias was performing a general checkup.

Fariñas was on his eighth day of hunger and thirst strike and "was pretty dehydrated and had very low blood pressure, reported the spokesperson, recalling that two days ago his doctor had said that in 48 hours the body of independent journalist could go into a Coma.

Source-(El Pais)
(Miami Herald)
(Orlando Zapata Tamayo blog)

Update!!!

Freelance journalist on hunger strike, Guillermo Fariñas Hernandez, returned home after receiving medical treatment at a hospital in Santa Clara, Cuba.

Alicia Hernandez, mother of Guillermo Fariñas, told Radio Martí that her son who had been on hunger strike for the last 8 days, and had been rushed to hospital had returned to his home and will continue the hunger strike in protest against the government of General Raúl Castro.

The details in the audio. > Audio Audio">

Source-(Radio Marti)

Eighth Cuban political prisoner on hunger strike

Próspero Gaínza Agüero

Próspero Gaínza Agüero is the eighth Cuban political prisoner reported to have started a hunger strike, since the death last week of political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo. Gaínza started his protest on Feb. 24, one day after Zapata succumbed to the effects of an 82-day hunger strike, according to Radio Martí.

Gaínza, imprisoned since the "black spring" of 2003, is protesting Zapata's death and demanding better treatment for political prisoners. He is currently being held at the Cuba Sí prison in Holguín province in eastern Cuba.

A day after Gaínza, who is serving a 20-year sentence, started his hunger strike, guards arbitrarily searched his cell, ostensibly looking for clues as to who had distributed in in the prison written information about Zapata's death, according to the Radio Martí report.

The other prisoners reportedly on hunger strike, all in prisons in Pinar del Rio in western Cuba, are:

Eduardo Díaz

Diosdado González

Nelson Molinet

Fidel Suarez

Orestes Paino

Pavel Hernández

Rafael Suárez

(Sourse-Uncommon Sence)

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Prisoner of Concience Ariel Sigler Amaya is Very Sick

Ariel Sigler Amaya

By: Miguel Sigler Amaya, expolitical prisoner , exiled in the USA.

Miami, FL. Monday, March 1st, 2010

First I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart, on behalf of the Sigler Amaya family, for what you are doing for my brother Ariel and the other prisoners of conscience.

I Communicated by telephone on Sunday, about 10 pm, with my other brother there in Cuba, Juan Francisco Sigler Amaya. My family was summoned 15 days ago by the medical board of Julio Diaz Rehabilitation Hospital in Havana, where my brother Ariel Sigler Amaya has remained for over five months. On Saturday 27 February there were 5 members of our family there.

They explained about the seriousness of Ariel's condition. It is getting worse by the day. He is expelling large amounts of blood from his rectum due to the advanced state of his hemorrhoids. He is coughing up pieces of putrid green and yellow with a lot of stench; he has intense pain in his throat, digestive tract, esophagus and stomach; intense suffering and great pain in the pelvis and bladder when he urinates (the urine has a strong stench), he suffers from dizziness, severe headaches, he is very pale yellow, weak, his legs are blackened and dried and he remains bed ridden with a device around the neck called "Minerva".

According to doctors they can not intervene surgically for the hemorrhoids or tonsillitis in his throat, because he would not survive in his state of weakness and severity.

Ariel says that he will use any resources he deems appropriate to end this situation. He said that he will not attempt to end his life via a possible suicide. The family got the message and advised him not to go an a hunger strike, since he would not last a week.

The security agents of the state who participated in this meeting-captains, lieutenant colonels and colonels of the highest-ranking Cuban government, were very disturbed by violent on the globally recognized information on the case of Ariel. They stated in a threatening manner that if the United States with all the rockets and missiles, have not been able to intimidate them, our family was not going to do it. The discussion became so heated that it almost resorted going to blows, all led by the renowned and infamous terrorist leader, Lt. Col. Tamayo.

Brothers: Please, ask for assistance, support and solidarity to prevent further human beings dying in Cuba because of a dictatorship than would sacrifice all Cubans to stay just one more day in power.

It is time to ask urgently for the arrest of Fidel, Raúl Castro, and Ramiro Valdes, by international recognized organizations in these cases of crimes against humanity.

Phone to communicate in Cuba with his brother Juan Francisco Sigler Amaya, his representative: 011-53-45-89-8448, Municipio Pedro Betancourt, Matanzas, Cuba.

(Source-Radio Marti)

Monday, March 1, 2010

31 Patients Died from Hipothermia in a Psichiatric Hospital in Havana-Photos made it out of Cuba!

Last January dozens of psychiatric patients died from Hypothermia and starvation in Havana's state run psych hospital.

The Cuban government admitted through their toilet newspaper Granma to 26 deaths.

Today I received an email letting me know that photographs of the state of the patients at the time of death had made it out of Cuba.

It is so shameful to see this happening in the mother land and I am so very sad for these patients deplorable conditions that lead to their death.

The rest of them can be seen at the blog Penultimos Dias.

The Miami Herald had this to say........

"At least 20 patients in a Cuban mental hospital died from hypothermia during the cold snap this week, said human rights activist Elizardo Sánchez, who branded it a case of ``criminal negligence by a government characterized by its general inefficiency.''

Sánchez said Thursday he had reliable reports of 20 deaths, but that some doctors had told him the real number of deaths at the hospital, popularly known as Mazorra, was 24 or 26. Cuban authorities have made no public comment on the case, Sánchez said, but some hospital staffers have reportedly been detained. ``It looks like they want to blame some doctors or paramedics,'' he added. The deaths occurred overnight from Monday to Tuesday, when the temperatures near the Havana Psychiatric Hospital dropped to 38.6 degrees, a bitter cold for tropical Cuba, said Sánchez, who heads the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation". Continious.........Miami Herald

Song Dedicated to Cuban Freedom Fighter Orlando Zapata Tamayo

A song has been dedicated to assassinated Cuban political prisoner and freedom fighter, Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

7 Cuba political prisoners on hunger strike

As of this Sunday February 28, seven political prisoners in jails in Piñar del Rio were on hunger strikes, protests they started last week after the death of prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo. (Sourse-Blog Uncommon Sense)

The protesters are:

Eduardo Díaz

Diosdado González

Nelson Molinet

Fidel Suarez

Orestes Paino

Pavel Hernández

Rafael Suárez

Also,political prisoners Adolfo Fernández Saínz and Pedro Argüelles have completed 48-hour hunger strikes they started as a tribute to Zapata. A third prisoner who had started a similar fast, Antonio Díaz Sánchez, still had not eaten as of Saturday, according to human rights activist Elizardo Sánchez.

Finally, former political prisoner Guillermo Fariñas is suffering from severe joint pain, dehydration and other effects of a hunger strike now in its fifth day. He has vowed to continue his protest until death, unless the Castro dictatorship releases from its jails political prisoners who are seriously ill.