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| Die fidel castro's van hiér én dààr [boodskap #32839] |
Vr, 28 Julie 2000 00:00 |
Davie Davis
Boodskappe: 1013
Geregistreer: November 2001
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Ek wonder of hierdie mense besef dat hulle praat van Thabo
Mbeki se groot held. 'n Spesiale vriend van dié regering.
Maw Gloudina se helde (en selfs ons dierbare Elaine dink
ook baie van hulle) se vriend.
Ek wonder of hulle ooit dié tipe leesstof lees.
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From: Anibal <haniba...@webtv.net>
Subject: Prison Conditions in Cuba
Date: 27 juillet, 2000 07:50
Desde Dentro de Cuba.
Distribuido por Cuba Free Press, Inc. -
http://www.cubafreepress.org
26 de Junio del 2000
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH REPORTS ON PRISON CONDITIONS IN CUBA.
Official Text.
Whether held for political or common crimes, inmates endure severe
hardships in Cuba''s prisons. Most prisoners face malnourishment on the
prison diet and suffer in overcrowded cells without sufficient medical
attention. Prison authorities insist that all detainees participate in
politically oriented reeducation sessions, such as chanting "Long live
Fidel" or "Socialism or Death," or face punitive measures including
beatings and solitary confinement.
Prison guards in men's facilities rely on "prisoners' councils"
(consejos de reclusos) to maintain internal discipline with beatings and
control over the meager food rations.
What food ? rotten vegetables, soup full of bugs,
the meat that is usually discarded as anumal food ...those
parts of the beef that no human consumes or would never eat ?
Scanty rations and no for HUMAN consumption ?
Prison authorities restrict
inmates' access to receiving religious guidance, in some cases with
interrogations about their religious beliefs. In some prisons, pre-trial
detainees are held together with convicts and minors with adults. Minors
also risk indefinite detention in juvenile facilities.
Cuba''s confinement of nonviolent political prisoners with prisoners
convicted of violent crimes is degrading and dangerous. Guards impose
undue restrictions on political prisoners' visits with family members.
Prison authorities have also punished political prisoners who denounced
prison abuses or failed to participate in political reeducation or wear
prison uniforms.
Many Cuban political prisoners have spent excessive periods in pretrial
detention, often in isolation cells. Following conviction, they have
faced additional punitive periods in solitary confinement. Police or
prison guards often heightened the punitive nature of solitary
confinement with additional sensory deprivation, by darkening cells,
removing clothing, or restricting food and water. The punitive and
intimidatory measures against political prisoners that caused severe
pain and suffering and the retaliations against those who denounced
abuses violated Cuba's obligations under the Convention against Torture
and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment, which it ratified in 1995.
In early 1998, Guantánamo Provincial Prison authorities reportedly
ordered beatings of political prisoners who denounced prison conditions,
including Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina, Jorge Luis García Pérez
(also known as Antúnez), Francisco Herodes Díaz Echemendía, and
Orosman Betancourt Dexidor. On April 11, 1998, Capt. Hermés
Hernández and Lt. René Orlando allegedly beat severely Bernardo
Arévalo Padrón, a journalist serving a six-year sentence for
contempt for authority at the Ariza prison in Cienfuegos. In a positive
step, Cuban military prosecutors accused both officers of wrongdoing in
early May, but as of October 1998, it remained unclear whether the two
had been arrested or tried. On April 5, 1998, common prisoners at the
Canaleta Prison in Matanzas beat Jorge Luis Cruz Arancibia. Prison
authorities reportedly refused to provide Cruz Arancibia with medical
care for his injuries.
Cuba maintained its extensive system of prison agricultural camps and
ran clothing assembly, construction, furniture, and other factories at
its prisons. Cuba's insistence that some political prisoners participate
in work programs and its inappropriate pressuring of inmates to work
without pay in inhuman conditions violated international labor and
prison rights standards. The Cuban government bars regular access to its
prisons by domestic and international human rights and humanitarian monitors.
The government last permitted the International Committee for the Red
Cross (ICRC), which visits prisoners in custody for political and
security offenses, to conduct prison visits in Cuba in 1989. The Cuban
government has not allowed Human Rights Watch to return to Cuba since
1995. Cuba never allowed the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in
Cuba to enter the country.
CUBA FREE PRESS, INC.
P.O. Box 652035
Miami, FL 33265-2035
Phone: (305)270 8779 -- Fax: (305)595 1883
E-mail: mai...@cubafreepress.org
Home: http://www.cubafreepress.org
Copyright © 2000 - Cuba Free Press, Inc.
********************
From: <LavozdeC...@aol.com>
To: <Jose...@aol.com>
Subject: Informes del Comite de Proteccion a Periodistas.-
Primera Parte
Date: 27 juillet, 2000 15:04
CUBA
President Fidel Castro Ruz's government did its best to stamp out independent
journalism in Cuba this year, promulgating a bill that virtually outlaws free
expression and perfecting preemptive repression.
The Cuban constitution grants the Communist Party the right to control the
press; it recognizes "freedom of speech and the press in accordance with the
goals of the socialist society." Official news is disseminated through
television, radio, or the Communist Party newspaper, Granma.
Since 1995, when the first independent press agencies appeared, a small
number of independent journalists have functioned on the margins of Cuban
society. There are currently about 20 independent agencies operating in Cuba
Journalists dictate stories over the phone to colleagues outside the country,
who are often Cubans in exile. The stories are circulated on the Internet,
published in newspapers in Miami and in Europe, and broadcast into Cuba by
Radio Martí, the controversial station set up by the U.S. government in 1983.
In the past two years, the Cuban government has stepped up efforts to jam
these broadcasts.
The Castro regime makes life as difficult as possible for independent
journalists. State security agents do not allow them to own a fax machine,
let alone a computer. They habitually detain and interrogate them. They
harass them with threats of eviction. And they monitor their telephone
conversations, regularly interrupting their service.
This year, with social tensions rising and political dissent becoming more
widespread and visible, the government redoubled its efforts to dam the flow
of information from Cuba. One particularly effective legal weapon is Article
72 of the penal code, which states, "Any person shall be deemed dangerous if
he or she has shown a proclivity to commit crimes demonstrated by conduct
that is in manifest contradiction with the norms of socialist morality."
"Dangerousness" carries a penalty of up to four years in prison.
While Article 72 has been on the books for some years, CPJ had not documented
any cases of journalists being prosecuted under this law since 1995. But in
January, Jesús Joel Díaz Hernández, executive director of the Cooperativa
Avileña de Periodistas Independientes (CAPI), was convicted of
"dangerousness" and sentenced to four years in prison. On November 23, CPJ
awarded Díaz Hernández its 1999 International Press Freedom Award in
absentia. (Read more about this award.) At year's end, three other Cuban
journalists were in prison for another offense: "disrespect" for president
Castro.
On February 16, Parliament passed the Law for the Protection of Cuba's
National Independence and Economy (also known as Law 88). The new law
establishes prison terms of up to 20 years for anyone deemed guilty of
"supporting, facilitating, or collaborating with the objectives of the
Helms-Burton law, the embargo, and the economic war against our people, with
the goal of ruining internal order, destabilizing the country and liquidating
the socialist state and Cuba's independence." The law sanctions those who,
directly or indirectly, pass on information to the U.S. government;
collaborate with foreign media; or possess, reproduce, or spread "subversive"
documents. (Foreign reporters are specifically exempted from the law's
provisions.)
Raúl Rivero, Cuba's leading independent journalist, described the law as
marking an attempt by Castro to "put a fence around Cuban reality." At year's
end the law had not yet been applied, although state security agents used it
routinely to threaten independent journalists with long prison terms. Despite
the threats, the independent press was tenacious in covering trials of
dissidents, public protests, and religious activities. In response, the
government continued to shift its media-control tactics from punishment to
prevention.
For example, telephone communications with Cuba were exceedingly difficult.
In February, the state telephone company limited its service to the United
States after Cuban exiles in Miami went to court in an attempt to garnish the
company's foreign earnings. While CPJ's telephone conversations with sources
in Cuba were frequently cut off in past years, this year the majority of
CPJ's calls to Cuba did not go through. One Cuban journalist who tried to
make a collect call to CPJ was told that the number was restricted.
State security agents routinely harassed independent journalists by putting
them under house arrest or by prohibiting provincial journalists from
traveling to Havana to cover stories. Many independent Cuban reporters
reported that their movements were severely restricted in the weeks preceding
the Ninth Ibero-American Summit, which took place in Havana on November 15
and 16.
In the end, this annual gathering of heads of state from throughout the
Ibero-American world proved a turning point for Cuba's independent press. On
November 1, President Castro launched a televised attack on dissidents and
independent journalists that lasted into the early hours of November 2. In
his speech, Castro mocked independent journalists and accused them of trying
to destabilize the summit. But Spanish prime minister José María Aznar and
other foreign dignitaries gave several dissidents and independent journalists
international recognition by meeting with them before the summit started.
Having lost face at the summit, the Castro regime again clamped down on the
independent press at the end of the year. Most of the repression was
nonviolent, with some notable exceptions. On December 10, for example,
CubaPress journalist María Margarita Miranda Cordova was beaten by a prison
guard while in detention to prevent her from covering a political rally.
Constant harassment forced 10 journalists into exile during 1999, bringing
the total of exiled journalists to around 40. But despite the government's
best efforts, there were more than a hundred independent journalists working
in Cuba at year's end. Their growing numbers raised concerns about the
quality of local reporting, and members of the old guard, such as Rivero,
proposed the formation of an independent press association charged with
upholding professional standards.
*********************
From: <LavozdeC...@aol.com>
To: <Jose...@aol.com>
Subject: Informe de CPJ- Agresiones a Periodistas
Independientes en Enero y Febrero
Date: 27 juillet, 2000 15:05
January 6
Lázaro Rodríguez Torres, Habana Press HARASSED
María del Carmen Carro Gómez Habana Press HARASSED
Jorge Olivera, Habana Press HARASSED
Sate security officers detained Habana Press correspondents Rodríguez Torres
and Carro Gómez, and Habana Press director Olivera. All three were threatened
with beatings.
The officers gave their names as Kevin, Arturo, and Vladimir (like many Cuban
security officials, they identified themselves only by their first names).
They raided the Havana home of Estrella García Rodríguez, which serves as the
headquarters of Habana Press, and detained the three journalists along with
García, local writer Jesús Díaz Loyola, and political dissident Javier
Troncoso. The detainees were taken to the Second Unit of the Revolutionary
National Police in central Havana.
The officers told the journalists that they were being detained to prevent
them from covering the appellate hearing of Lázaro Constantín Durán, a
political dissident who was convicted of "dangerousness" in December 1998 and
sentenced to four years in prison. Constantín appealed his conviction; the
hearing was set for January 7, 1999.
Olivera and Carro Gómez were released after several hours, along with García
and Troncoso. After their release, state security officers prevented all four
from leaving their homes until Constantín's hearing was over.
Rodríguez Torres and Díaz Loyola were transferred to the headquarters of the
Technical Department of Investigations. They were put in cells with common
criminals and were interrogated separately in the middle of the night. Both
Rodríguez and Díaz Loyola were released in the afternoon of January 7.
January 13
Odalys Ivette Curbelo Sánchez, CubaPress HARASSED
At 6 p.m., two state security officers who identified themselves as Capt.
Oscar and Capt. Alfredo arrested Curbelo Sánchez, a reporter with the
independent news agency CubaPress, at her home in the Rancho Boyeros
neighborhood of Havana. The two officers took Curbelo Sánchez to the Tenth
Unit of the Revolutionary National Police and threatened to send her back to
the provinces if she continued to cover public demonstrations. They released
her at 7:45 p.m.
Formerly a mathematics professor, Curbelo Sánchez began her work for
CubaPress as the Pinar del Río provincial correspondent on June 16, 1997. She
moved to Havana to replace CubaPress's Ana Luisa López Baeza, who went into
exile in October 1998.
In a February 3 letter to President Fidel Castro Ruz, CPJ protested the Cuban
government's ban on journalists covering street protests.
January 15
Pedro Argüelles Morán, CubaPress HARASSED
Argüelles Morán, Ciego de Avila correspondent for the independent news agency
CubaPress, was summoned to appear before the local chief of the Revolutionary
National Police. He received a warning for "dangerousness" because he did not
work for a state company and lacked a steady income. Under Article 72 of
Cuba's penal code, anyone can be sentenced to four years in prison for
"dangerousness" if he or she shows a "special proclivity for committing a
crime."
In a February 3 letter to President Fidel Castro Ruz, CPJ condemned Article
72 as a flagrant violation of international law.
January 18
Hirán González González, CubaPress HARASSED
González González, CubaPress correspondent in Cienfuegos Province, was
ordered to appear at the headquarters of the Revolutionary National Police in
the town of Aguada de Pasajeros. State security officer Vladimir Castillo
told González González, "I'm going to put you in prison if you keep on
reporting news to Radio Martí." Castillo also threatened to prosecute the
journalist for "dangerousness."
In a February 3 letter to President Fidel Castro Ruz, CPJ condemned the law
against "dangerousness" as a flagrant violation of international law.
January 18
Jesús Joel Díaz Hernández, Cooperativa Avileña de
Periodistas Independientes
IMPRISONED
Officers of the Revolutionary National Police arrested Díaz Hernández,
executive director of the independent news service Cooperativa Avileña de
Periodistas Independientes (CAPI), at his home in the town of Morón, in Ciego
de Avila Province. Díaz Hernández started a hunger strike shortly after he
was detained. On January 19, the Morón Municipal Court convicted Díaz
Hernández of "dangerousness" and sentenced him to four years in prison.
Díaz Hernández appealed the conviction. In a summary session on January 22, a
court in Ciego de Avila confirmed Díaz Hernández's sentence. His attorney was
not allowed to attend the session (Díaz Hernández was represented by a
state-appointed lawyer). On January 28, Díaz Hernández ended his hunger
strike.
At year's end Díaz Hernández was being held in the Ciego de Avila provincial
prison, known as "Canaleta," in Morón. His colleagues report that state
security officials routinely confiscate his writing materials, preventing him
from working in prison. He is allowed to receive only a limited number of
visitors.
Díaz Hernández's conviction was based on the fact that he had previously
received six warnings for "dangerousness" under Article 72 of the penal code,
which states that a person is considered "dangerous" if he or she is likely
to commit crimes, a propensity demonstrated by conduct that is in "clear
contradiction with the norms of socialist morality." According to Article
75-1, the police authorities may issue a warning for "dangerousness."
In 1996, Díaz Hernández was fired from his government job after the Vigilance
and Protection System, a vigilante group tied to the Communist Party,
organized a public rally against him. Such rallies are known as "acts of
repudiation" (actos de repudio). He then started working for the independent
news agency Patria and subsequently founded CAPI.
In a February 3 letter to President Fidel Castro Ruz, CPJ condemned the
incarceration of Díaz Hernández and demanded his unconditional release.
In July, Díaz Hernández started another hunger strike, this one lasting 17
days. He continued to report on prison life, causing state security officers
to threaten him with prosecution under the Law for the Protection of Cuba's
National Independence and Economy, which imposes jail terms of up to 20
years. Relatives who visited him were frisked and interrogated. In September,
after spending eight months in solitary confinement, Díaz Hernández was
transferred to a section of the prison where other inmates convicted of
"dangerousness" are also held.
In November, CPJ honored Díaz Hernández with an International Press Freedom
Award. Guests at the November 23 awards ceremony in New York City signed 312
postcards urging President Castro to release the journalist immediately. And
in a January 13, 2000, letter to President Castro, CPJ requested information
about the legal status of Díaz Hernández and the three other journalists who
were then imprisoned in Cuba.
January 24
Nancy Sotolongo León, Unión de Periodistas y Escritores Cubanos
Independientes
IMPRISONED
Santiago Martínez Trujillo, Unión de Periodistas y Escritores Cubanos
Independientes IMPRISONED
María de los Angeles González Amaro, Unión de Periodistas y Escritores
Cubanos Independientes IMPRISONED
As part of a wide-ranging state crackdown on the independent Cuban press,
three independent journalists were detained over a three-day period to
prevent them from covering a protest march commemorating the one-year
anniversary of the visit of Pope John Paul II to Cuba on January 25, 1998.
Sotolongo León, a correspondent for the press agency Unión de Periodistas y
Escritores Cubanos Independientes (UPECI), was detained on January 24 and
brought to the Department of Technical Investigations (DTI).
On January 25, plainclothes state security officers detained Martínez
Trujillo, a UPECI photographer, along with dissident Milagro Cruz Cano, as
the two were leaving the headquarters of the independent news agency Habana
Press. They were also taken to DTI headquarters.
That same day, two state security officers who identified themselves as Oscar
and Jesús visited the home of González Amaro, UPECI's director, and
threatened to detain her if she took part in the protest march.
At 1 p.m. on January 26, three plainclothes state security agents in a
Revolutionary National Police patrol car arrived at González Amaro's home in
the Havana district of Santa Amalia, accompanied by the president of the
local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, a Communist Party block
association. The officers searched González Amaro's home and confiscat-ed a
tape recorder, cassette tapes, and documents. They detained her and took her
to the DTI.
Sotolongo León, Martínez Trujillo, and González Amaro were all released on
January 29. In a February 3 letter to President Fidel Castro Ruz, CPJ
condemned the harassment, arrest, and detention of independent journalists in
Cuba.
January 28
Ramón Alberto Cruz Lima, Patria HARASSED
State security officers put Cruz Lima, director of the independent news
agency Patria, under house arrest to prevent him from covering a public event
celebrating the 146th anniversary of the birth of Cuban national hero José
Martí. Cruz Lima was not allowed to leave his Ciego de Avila home until 11
p.m.
In a February 3 letter to President Fidel Castro Ruz, CPJ protested the
government's efforts to prevent Cuban journalists from covering street
protests.
February 4
Marvin Hernández Monzón, CubaPress HARASSED
Three state security officers, who gave their names, respectively, as Capt.
Oscar, Aramís, and Luis Mariano, detained Hernández Monzón, deputy director
of the independent news service CubaPress.
Hernández Monzón was waiting for the bus in Buena Vista, in Playa
Municipality, when the three agents pulled up in a private car and detained
her. They drove her to a state security facility on the
outskirts of Havana.
Hernández Monzón said the officers interrogated her for more than two hours.
They argued that independent journalists are easily manipulated and never
provide positive coverage of the government. They also asked how CubaPress
was financed. After the interrogation, the agents dropped her off in downtown
Havana.
February 16
María del Carmen Carro Gómez, Habana Press HARASSED
Lázaro Rodríguez Torres, Habana Press HARASSED
A state security officer detained Habana Press agency reporters Carro Gómez
and Rodríguez Torres to prevent them from covering a press conference
organized by the Episcopal Latin American Council (CELAM).
As Carro Gómez and Rodríguez Torres were leaving the Habana Press
headquarters at 9 a.m. to attend the CELAM press conference in Playa
Municipality, a state security officer who gave his name as Oscar detained
them and took them to a car, where a state security major was waiting. The
two officers drove the journalists to the Second Unit of the Revolutionary
National Police in central Havana, where they interrogated them about their
education and their journalistic work. The officers confiscated a draft
article by Carro Gómez, as well as her professional credentials and a
membership card from the Christian Democrat Party (PDC). The officers also
confiscated both journalists' tape recorders, along with Rodríguez Torres'
camera.
The officers returned the two tape recorders after listening to Carro Gómez's
recordings. The journalists were freed at 2 p.m., two hours after the CELAM
press conference began.
February 26
Efrén Martínez Pulgarón, CubaPress IMPRISONED
Martínez Pulgarón, a Havana-based reporter for the independent news agency
CubaPress, was detained on February 26 to prevent him from covering the March
1 sedition trial of Vladimiro Roca Antúnez, Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello,
Félix Antonio Bonne Carcassés, and René Gómez Manzano.
Two state security officers intercepted Martínez Pulgarón in Vedado, Havana,
and took him to the Technical Department of Investigations. He was released
on March 2.
February 27
Marvin Hernández Monzón, CubaPress IMPRISONED
State security officers and members of the Revolutionary National Police
(PNR) detained Hernández Monzón, deputy director of the independent news
agency CubaPress, from February 27 until March 2, to prevent her from
covering the sedition trial of Vladimiro Roca Antúnez, Martha Beatriz Roque
Cabello, Félix Antonio Bonne Carcassés, and René Gómez Manzano. The trial
took place in Havana on March 1.
At around 5 p.m. on February 27, a PNR officer arrived at Hernández Monzón's
home in Palmira Municipality, in Cienfuegos Province, and ordered her to
accompany him to a police station. The journalist refused to go unless he
produced an arrest warrant.
Twenty minutes later, four state security agents and the local police chief
arrived at Hernández Monzón's home. She again asked to see an arrest warrant,
but the officers replied that they only wanted to talk to her. They took her
to the police station in the town of Cienfuegos, 10 miles from Palmira. Once
there, they filed a case against her for "illicit enrichment," based on
supposed irregularities in the construction of her house, which actually
belongs to her brother.
Subsequently, Hernández Monzón was put in solitary confinement in a
windowless cell. She refused to eat until the next day, February 28. That
night, she was placed in a cell with windows. On March 1, a police captain
accused Hernández Monzón of "economic crimes" relating to the construction of
her house. She was told she would be informed within 20 days if the police
decided to press charges, but she received no further notice. Hernández
Monzón was released on March 2.
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