Cuba - A Way Forward

[naaman fletcher]

Our first step was to write to the Cuban government requesting
authorization to visit the island. Human Rights Watch does not normally
request permission to do its work, but it seemed like a good way to test
whether the government's attitude had changed. The government never
responded.

.............................


We then got in touch with several local dissidents. Outside of Cuba,
people often refer to "the dissidents" as though they are a single,
unified political group. They are not.

............................................

E-mail access on the island is virtually nonexistent, and
many families outside of Havana do not have phone lines. When we were
able to get through by phone, some people were too frightened to speak.
Others spoke cryptically to avoid arousing the suspicion of listening
ears. Still others spoke freely until their lines went dead,
mid-sentence. While we did manage to conduct some full-length
interviews, it became increasingly clear that the only way to get the
full story would be to visit the island.

.....................................................
It would prove to be the most difficult research mission Human Rights
Watch had undertaken in the region in years.

...............................................

Some people became so uneasy talking about government
abuses that we cut short the interviews and moved on. Several alerted us
to watching neighbors who monitored suspicious activity for the local
Revolutionary Defense Committees. A Baptist minister, when asked about
human rights, told us quietly that what we were doing was illegal and
asked us to produce identification.

.........................................

Yet many people welcomed us into their homes, where they spoke frankly
of their experiences. Small boxes and folders were brought out from
beneath beds and inside kitchen cabinets, with official documents that
corroborated their stories. Among much else, we were shown a court
ruling from a dissident's trial, which his wife and children were not
allowed to attend; a parole order warning a journalist that he could be
returned to prison at any time; a letter denying a critic of the
government permission to travel.

................................
and
Raúl's government had used sham trials to lock away scores more. These
new prisoners included more than forty dissidents whom Raúl had
imprisoned for "dangerousness." The most Orwellian provision of Cuba's
criminal code, this charge allows authorities to imprison individuals
before they have committed a crime, on the suspicion that they might
commit one in the future. Their "dangerous" activities included failing
to attend pro-government rallies, not belonging to official party
organizations, and simply being unemployed.

..................................................

One man was arrested and sentenced to four years for
"dangerousness" after he tried to hand out copies of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights in public in 2006. In 2008, he attempted to
commemorate International Human Rights Day (December 10) by reading the
Universal Declaration aloud to fellow inmates. But according to his
wife, a guard cut him short, ordering him to eat the text—literally.
When he refused, he was beaten, thrown into solitary confinement for
weeks, and sentenced in a closed-door hearing to six more years in
prison for disrespecting authority.

...................................................

While not all dissidents are locked up, nearly all are effectively
imprisoned on the island itself. In clear violation of international
law, the Cuban government requires its citizens to obtain permission to
leave the country, and those marked as "counterrevolutionaries" are
generally denied it


......................................................

The Cuban government also seeks to isolate dissidents from their
communities. They are fired from their jobs and blacklisted from
employment. They are subjected to public "acts of repudiation," in which
mobs surround their homes, chant insults, throw stones, and sometimes
assault them in plain view of their neighbors. Friends and family
members are warned to keep their distance, lest they too be branded
counterrevolutionaries and punished. Under the "dangerousness"
provision, even spending time with someone who is considered "dangerous"
is punishable, a kind of "dangerousness" by association.

..............................................................

http://cubadata.blogspot.com/2010/05/cubaa-way-forward.html

[Billy Burnett]

1. Very creative writing project.

Beautiful. Thanks for posting it.

:donut:

[naaman fletcher]

2. What is your opinion of Human Rights Watch

Do you think they just made this up?

[Billy Burnett]

3. They say that the entire island is a prison.

Only an ignorant dipshit would believe BS like this.

[naaman fletcher]

4. Do you need permission to leave the country? nt