How easy it seems for the monsters running Cuba to impose a death sentence with no verdict named; all they have to do is ignore humanity, and mock God.  

Dania Virgen Garcia reports on Cubanet that Leonardo Brindis, age 22, died after being denied medical treatment by prison doctors.  He had been on a hunger strike for five days at the time of his death.

The story is here, in Spanish.

It's Groundhog Day, and if Punxsutawney Phil is correct, we are in for six more weeks of winter before we can look forward to spring.  Sadly, the weather's temperature is not the only measure of warmth for humans.  As it is, there is no need for a weather predicting rodent in Cuba, because there is no escaping the chill of the repressive winter of the firmly entrenched Castro dictatorship.  We witness those international masses who cheered the so-called Arab Spring, who proclaim concern for universal human rights, justice, and self-determination, apply a different standard when it comes to rights for the Cuban people.  Apparently, the Castro brothers are just too sexy for condemnation, to lovable to be judged by their actions, as were other lesser tyrants long ago confined to the pages of history.  Businessmen from around the globe froth at the mouth over the delights of the island in anticipation of future profits, while turning a blind eye to the public beatings of peacefully protesting women.  The Castro's author the islands narrative; they say there are no political prisoners in Cuba, and Walla!  In lockstep, the international media ignores the reality of Cuban political prisoners, well documented by international human rights organizations, and gleefully disseminate the propaganda.  Not content with that complicity, their white wash often includes an added insult to the victims they say do not exist.  Clergy of all faiths, those representatives of human kind's morality, travel to the island to pay homage to the world's longest reigning tyrants, never minding the history of executions, the atrocities, or the testimony of survivors. 

 There's a price to be paid for this base inhumanity, as the devil always gets his due.  The forces gathering in the Middle East, their infiltration into the Americas, and the erosion of constitutions by radicals elected to power may be the beginning of payback.  If the lights of liberty darken, will that too be called justice?

Of course they do, because:

"Cuba is Canada's largest market in the Caribbean and Central American region, with two-way trade topping $1 billion in 2010. A Canadian oil and gas company, Sherritt International, is the largest foreign investor in Cuba."

From this article wherein the Canadian minister for Latin America trips all over herself  trying to display concern about Human Rights where there is none:

"We see a very significant process of economic reform and liberalization in Cuba," Ablonczy told The Canadian Press in a pre-trip interview.

 Ablonczy does not necessarily believe this will lead to greater democratic freedoms any time soon in a country where the government exerts Soviet-era control over its 11 million citizens.

 "Political change is not what Cuban leadership has in mind," she said.

 "There's a lot of debate around these things and there's a lot of caution too. But Canada, as an investor in Cuba, with lots of people-to-people contact, wants to play as positive and constructive role as possible."

 Ablonczy said Canada stands ready to share experiences and best practices "as Cuba moves forward, very gradually, towards some needed changes and modernization."

She said it's important to be very respectful of her hosts and "what they want to achieve and their own goals and objectives." 

And this:

 "In a country like Cuba, a decentralizing dynamic is also a democratizing dynamic."

  Tell that to the Chinese and Vietnamese.

Really folks, you couldn't make this up.

From Capitol Hill Cubans:

U.S. Bishops' Absurd Foreign Policy

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has unveiled its 2012 legislative agenda.

Among its priorities is ensuring that U.S. trade with democratic Colombia doesn't violate human and labor rights, while lobbying to expand trade with totalitarian Cuba despite no existing human and labor rights.

You read it correctly.

From Catholic News Service:

Richard Coll, another foreign policy adviser at the USCCB, focused on Latin America, said he'll be eyeing possible legislation related to free trade agreements, how they are implemented and how well participating countries -- notably Colombia -- are upholding their end of agreements to protect labor and human rights, for instance.

He also said he'd be watching developments related to Cuba. Several members of Congress attempted to amend year-end legislation to roll back Obama administration changes that made it easier for Americans to visit or send money to relatives in Cuba. The U.S. and Cuban bishops have opposed rollbacks; in fact they have advocated for further easing of the economic embargo the United States has had against Cuba for more than 50 years.

How about the other tyrants (and U.S. national security threats) around the world?

The USCCB seeks to "foster a measured approach to international hot spots including Iran, Syria and North Korea."

Yet, sadly, the cruelty of those tyrants towards innocent civilians is not "measured."

Friday night thinking about Cuba, these lyrics came to mind.

How many freedoms must Cubans be denied
 before their humanity is recognized?
How many must die at sea
Before they’re allowed to sail free?
Yes, how many times must the executioner prevail
Before they’re forever banned?
The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

 Yes, how many years can a people remain enslaved
Before humanity heeds their bondage?
Yes, how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes, how many times can the world turn its back
Pretending they just don’t see?
The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

Yes, how many people must drown at sea
Before they’re allowed to travel free?
Yes, how many ears must humanity have
Before they can hear Cuba’s cry?
Yes, how many deaths will it take till they decide
That too many people have died?
The answer my friend in blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

 Borrowed from Bob Dylan´s Blowin In The Wind, 1963.

This New Year's Day marks fifty-three years of Castro's iron fisted rule in Cuba. Fifty-three years of repression and misery for the Cuban people, a reality usually ignored by the press and so-called Cuba experts.  However, occasionally the truth slips through the wall of propaganda.

Good friend Roland Alum, a political anthropologist, wrote this timely article on poverty in Cuba, and wonders never cease, the Jersey Journal published it.

CUBA’S CULTURE OF POVERTY PERSISTS
By Roland A. Alum
SPECIAL TO THE JERSEY JOURNAL

The Fidel-&-Raul Castro regime marks 53 years this Jan. 1. The brothers unquestionably enjoyed extraordinary popularity in 1959, but the enthusiasm soon vanished as they turned Cuba into a financially and spiritually bankrupt Marxist anti-utopia. As a result, nearly two million Cubans of all social backgrounds have fled, many of them settling in Hudson County.

By the 1950s, Cuba was a regional leader in numerous social indicators, notwithstanding instability and corruption during the republican era (1902-58). But since 1959 the island-nation has become a backward, closed society beleaguered by unproductivity and rationing.

Sociologist Tomas Masaryk noted that "dictators 'look good' until the last minutes"; in Cuba's case, it seems particularly fine to certain U.S. intellectuals. Comfortably from abroad, apologists contend that most of the socioeconomic problems that traditionally afflicted the prior five and a half decades were eliminated after 1959. Yet, fact-finding by international social-scientists challenges this fantasy.

An early, little-known account uncovering some effects of the Castros' regimentation came from research in Cuba in 1969-70 by U.S. cultural-anthropologists Oscar Lewis and Douglas Butterworth. They intended to test Lewis' theory that a culture of poverty would not exist in a Marxist-oriented society. They had naively presupposed that the socially alienating conditions that engender such phenomena could develop among the poor solely under capitalism.

The Lewis-Butterworth early on-the-ground scrutiny validates many accounts by respected experts and the much vilified exiles. There exists a culture of poverty in Cuba, although it is not necessarily a survivor of the old times, but seemingly a by-product of the Castros' totalitarian socialism. There were always poor Cubans, and some version of the culture of poverty might have existed before; but in my communications with Butterworth, he reconfirmed another discovery. The researchers could not document a case for a pervasive pre-1959 culture of poverty. The authorities must have suspected the prospective conclusions because the scholars were abruptly expelled and their Cuban statistician imprisoned.

Upon the 53rd anniversary, the old Lewis-Butterworth analysis invites renewed reflection. Apologists customarily replicate propagandistic clichés by blaming failures on external factors, such as the ending, two decades ago, of the multibillion-dollar subsidies from the defunct Soviet Bloc.

The anthropologists' undertaking, however, revealed that life for average Cubans in the Castros' first decade was already beset with corruption and time-wasting food lines. Likewise, Butterworth described how ordinary people were engaging in what socio-behavioral scientists now call "everyday forms of resistance." Cubans were already undermining the police-state through black-marketeering, pilfering and vandalism, as we hear that they continue to do decades later.

After more than half a century of oppression and poor quality of life, one hopes for a transition to an open society with equal opportunities for every Cuban.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The author, a long-time Hudsonite, is a political-anthropologist affiliated with Icod Associates of New Jersey. Email him at rolandnj@yahoo.com.

I encourage our Babalu family to follow the link to the Jersey Journal and leave a comment; share your experience, and let them know you appreciate reading an honest story about Cuba.

Gracias Roland.

Feliz Año Nuevo all, may this be the year we've been waiting for, may this be the year the long nightmare ends.

So far this isn't part of the tourist tour in Cuba, but at the rate violent repression is increasing who knows, perhaps those seeking "Forbidden Fruit" in Cuba will someday share the very real Cuban experience of having your head cracked open by one of Castro's mobs.

Photo captured from video posted below at the 2:23 mark:

Here's the video, Agredido por una turba el 2 de diciembre, (Attacked by a crowd December 2) in Spanish, from Hablamos Press.

Gorki Aguila Carrasco, Yoani Sanchez, and others on Twitter and Facebook report that popular Porno Para Ricardo guitarist Ciro Diaz has been arrested in Cuba.

We all know while in Cuba the limo-lib elites do not do as the Cubans do. They enjoy the fabricated tourist island paradise the world media paints, some even enjoying the company of the Castros themselves. Some people discover the harsh disparity themselves.

Right now there are thousands of useful idiots occupying and soiling the streets of cities around the nation in hopes of moving us into the wonderful system of communism/socialism ... whatever they want to call it. They believe everyone should have the same, and nobody should have anymore than anyone else. All wealth and personal property should be redistributed equally.

Equally? Well, as you read here everyday you know it's not so equal in Cuba. Nor is it equal in any other communist enclave around the world. Even socialist Europe is showing ugly stretch marks from their decades of running a socialist Nanny State existence into the ground. China tries to hold itself up as the most perfect communist country ever. Those of us that do not romance the dehumanizing system of government are not fooled by its dabbling in capitalism in order to keep feeding its government machine. Even Castro is considering some of that, while hoping Obama can get the USA opening doors and windows to some of our tourism and financial bucks to re-fuel their regime.

But this is why those elites within our own government, business, and entertainment communities can so easily plan and push for our fundamental transformation to a socialist, and eventually a full-fledged communist, system. It is because they believe they will not have to give up an inch of property, a single dime, or an ounce of sweat and blood once the conversion from our republic to their ideal utopia? Well, all anyone needs to do is look to all pockets of the Marxist faith around the world to see where they get that idea. How about China's own rich and its "princelings"...

One evening early this year, a red Ferrari pulled up at the U.S. ambassador's residence in Beijing, and the son of one of China's top leaders stepped out, dressed in a tuxedo.

Bo Guagua, 23, was expected. He had a dinner appointment with a daughter of the then-ambassador, Jon Huntsman.

The car, though, was a surprise. The driver's father, Bo Xilai, was in the midst of a controversial campaign to revive the spirit of Mao Zedong through mass renditions of old revolutionary anthems, known as "red singing." He had ordered students and officials to work stints on farms to reconnect with the countryside. His son, meanwhile, was driving a car worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and as red as the Chinese flag, in a country where the average household income last year was about $3,300.

The episode, related by several people familiar with it, is symptomatic of a challenge facing the Chinese Communist Party as it tries to maintain its legitimacy in an increasingly diverse, well-informed and demanding society. The offspring of party leaders, often called "princelings," are becoming more conspicuous, through both their expanding business interests and their evident appetite for luxury, at a time when public anger is rising over reports of official corruption and abuse of power.

State-controlled media portray China's leaders as living by the austere Communist values they publicly espouse. But as scions of the political aristocracy carve out lucrative roles in business and embrace the trappings of wealth, their increasingly high profile is raising uncomfortable questions for a party that justifies its monopoly on power by pointing to its origins as a movement of workers and peasants.

More...

But I am sure our communists can do it better.

This was taken November 24, 2011 around 10:30 am, on the corner of 23 and L in La Habana.

By marisolmarquez1:

"Protesters were trying to express their ideas and support the "Damas de Blanco" and Laura Pollan. Everyone was supportive except for one lady who decided to rip the sign apart. The police also saw the protesters and left them alone."

What do you make of this?

H/T: Fernando

While the MSM continues to parrot Cuban state press run by a murderous outlaw dictator, they ignore the brutal violent acts of repression against Cuba's peaceful dissidents. 

The life of Cuban opposition leader Jorge Luis García Pérez (Antúnez) is in danger.

I am pleading with the MSM and international human rights organizations to please speak out on behalf of this peaceful dissident. Look around our world; dissent and protest is universally celebrated, the Arab Spring, the OWS, the European demonstrations. Whether or not if you agree with their agendas, we should all agree that no one should be denied the right of free speech.

The above referenced acts of dissent have enjoyed wide coverage in the media. I ask, I plea and beg, why are the Cuban people excluded from international media? Are they not responsible for exposing the truth about violations of universally accepted rights? Are they no longer the so-called 5th estate? Why are peaceful Cuban dissenters, including women, and the elderly allowed to be subjected to the most agregious violations of their human rights; torture, beatings, intimidation, threats, imprisonment, and murder. Why is that when their stories are presented to international media and human rights organizations in multiple lanugages, the response is for the most part silence.

Please, please speak out in support of human rights for the Cuban people. You may save a life.

From tireless defender of rights and justice for the Cuban people Marc Masferrer at Uncommen Sense:

Antúnez on Nov. 8 was arrested, beaten and thrown into a jail cell at the police station in his hometown of Placetas. His wife, Iris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, a leading activist in her own right, told CubaEncuentro.com that she has been told that Antúnez is in poor health, suffering from chest pains and headaches.

Meanwhile, officials have threatened to hold Antúnez, one of the most forceful activists on the island, in jail indefinitely.

Pedazos de la Isla has a personal appeal from Iris:

Attention! The activist and brother of Jorge Luis Garcia Perez Antunez just arrived to my home. He tells me that officials in the Placetas Police Unit informed him that his brother is in critical condition right now. They said that Antunez is suffering from very low blood pressure and very low sugar levels. I am calling on all those people of goodwill so that they raise their voices for my husband.

The pile of mierda from official sources in Cuba gets higher every day.  Now that Cubans can supposedly buy and sell cars and real estate, it seems they now also need to respect the image of their cities.  (The article is printed on toilet paper;  I won't link, but you know where to find it.)

Cuba, to encourage tourism and to cover up the true nature of their criminal dictatorship, pretends to promote sustainable urban development to the politically correct blind to reality eco-idiots.  The official architect, titled executive and scientific secretary at the 14th International Convention on Territorial and Urban Development held in Havana declares:

When undertaking urban renewal, we must be careful not to damage the environment and the image of our cities.   To this end, we must respect and abide by building codes, he continued. Despite 76 percent of Cuban territory is urban, forum participants called for more stimulus to rural areas, since agriculture is indispensable for the national food production sector.

 Building codes?  What building codes?  Ask residents of ciudad centro about building codes.  I doubt these are on the official Havana architectural tour:

 Not to mention the dwellings of those not on the official housing recipient list:

The official statement, even when programmed for an international audience, or perhaps because of,  can't help but reveal the truth:

 In this spirit, the architect urged people to become more aware on the importance of responsible and organized urban development. He also called for implementing more efficient control mechanisms to ensure all building operations are carried out in compliance with established regulations.  (My emphasis)

 Speaking of regulations and food production, I wonder, is eating lobster in Cuba still a crime?

If you love visiting Cuba why not join Club Cubano and start earning rewards-brought to you by Cuba Explorer:

American Club members are credited in U.S. dollars... 

Cubaexplorer.com also doing business as Cuba Treks, specializes in Cuba tours for schools, in collaboration with:

Asociación Cubana de Limitados Físicos y Motores

Asociación de Pedagógos

Casa del Niño y la Niña

Casas de orientación a la Mujer y la Familia

Central de Trabajadors de Cuba

Centro Nacional de Educación Sexual

Consejo Mundial por La Paz

Escuela Lationoamericana de Medicina

Facultad de Lenjuas Extranjeras, Universidad de la Habana

Ferderación Cubana de Béisbol

Federación de Mujeres Cubanas

Federacioón Estudiantil Universitaria

Instituto Cubano de Amistad con Los Pueblos

Instituto Superior de Arte

Museo de la Alfabetización

I saved this one for last, especially in light of the recent passing of Laura Pollán, and her close up experience with her local CDR:

Comité de Defensa de la Revolución-Described as:  CDR (Committee for the Defense of the Revolution) are voluntary non'governmental organizations, existing on nearly every block, that finace activities through annual dues paid by their members.  From a North American perspective, they are similar to a combination of a block watch committee, community center and neighborhood enhancement project.

This video recording of a tour by eighteen Canadian high school students includes a visit to a CDR. (Take barf bag) If you sign up for their Quarterly Education Tours Newsletter, you'll receive Classroom aide material which includes the video and a poster of Che with the quote, "A true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love."

¡Cuba que linda es Cuba! | Cuba, what a beautiful island! from Marcel Hatch on Vimeo.

Check out their staff, including American Marcel Hatch, who previously served as a volunteer press correspondent for the Pastors for Peace Caravan.

Their Website is extensive, with many many links. Check it out here. Since 1997, they've sent thousands of students and teachers on study abroad tours to Cuba. They want to hear from you!

1 888 965 5647 Toll free
1 877 687 3817 Toll free
1 604 874 9048 Long distance
1 604 874 9041 Facsimile
1 778 859 1048 Mobile for emergencies
Email: hello@cubaexplorer.com

Or writel to:
Zunzun Education Services Ltd
[dba] Cuba Education Tours
2278 East 24th Avenue
Vancouver, British Columbia
V5N 2V2 Canada

I will forever hold in my heart the image of Laura Pollán, dressed in white, carrying gladiolus, leading the column of  Las Damas de Blanco. How many of us waited every Sunday for news of their weekly act of brave resistance, their peaceful, dignified walk down Havana’s 5th Avenue, as we prayed for their safety, the release of their husbands and all political prisoners, and inspired by their bravery and dignity, dared to hope for more, so much more for Cuba.

Laura Pollán´s dissidence is reminiscent of China's Tank Man.  She dared to stand down the might of an oppressive state, and sadly has suffered the same fate as that unknown rebel, but with one significant difference; unlike China’s invisible rebel, Laura Pollán is not going to disappear. Just as the weak and cowardly Castro dictators were rendered helpless to stop Laura from marching in life, her cause, Libertad, Libertad, Libertad, will prevail. They will be unable to stop Cuba’s inevitable passage out of bondage to freedom.

In the days ahead the Cuban diaspora and friends will be holding memorial tributes for Laura Pollán; we will wear white, carry gladiolus, and in her honor, we will raise our fists in solidarity with Las Damas de Blanco and all of Cuba’s dissidents.   They will continue their fight for freedom with her name added to the list of heroes and martyrs who inspire them and whose legacy they carry.  We will continue to support, as the MSM reminds us, those “tiny” number of dissidents.  The same tiny dissident movement always present during the 52 years of the Castro dictatorship, the same tiny dissident movement that Castro’s firing squads, concentration camps, forced re-locations, exile, actos de repudios, the 200 plus prisons—a gulag, has not silenced.  May God Bless and keep always, Laura Pollán.

Not much is uglier than people vacationing in a Potemkin village while ignoring  human rights atrocities  right under their noses.   However, I think Congressmen Jeff Flake and Charles Rangel naming a bill allowing  just that the "Export Freedom to Cuba Act," is an affront to all those in Cuba struggling for freedom.  Ugly Americans indeed.

From The Hill: 

Inspired by Cuba's pro-democracy leaders

 

By Mauricio Claver-Carone,a director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC and founding editor of CapitolHillCubans.com in Washington, D.C - 10/12/11 01:01 PM ET

 What could be more pompous (and insulting) than the argument that American and foreign tourists can "inspire" the Cuban people to seek democracy? Not much.

Well, on second thought, maybe Republican Congressman Jeff Flake of Arizona and Democratic Congressman Charlie Rangel of New York calling their bill to sweep away all remaining restrictions on American travel to Cuba, the "Export Freedom to Cuba Act."

Or, the Obama Administration, which rejects American exceptionalism everywhere else in the world, arguing that American travelers (that have been carefully screened for entry by the Castro regime) are our best "Ambassadors of Freedom" to the Cuban people.

 Their argument is that Cubans, upon seeing spring breakers and tourists enjoying luxury "people-to-people" tours and Cuban-American "mules" peddling flat-screen TV's, will suddenly realize what they're missing under the Castros' totalitarian dictatorship, as if Cubans don't already know what's missing, and life under a brutal regime was their voluntary choice.

The argument further holds that American travelers are different from the throngs of Canadian snowbirds and the European sex tourists visiting the island for the last two decades, frequently degrading the Cuban people while bankrolling the repressive regime.

American travelers, in other words, will be "truly inspirational."

Americans are undoubtedly the kindest, noblest and most charitable people in the world. But it's extraordinarily arrogant to argue that any foreign tourist is needed to inspire or empower the Cuban people, when some of the most courageous and inspirational people in this world are living in Cuba.

Meet Ivonne Mayeza Galano.

Last month, this amazing woman stood alone on the steps of the Capitol building in Havana. Knowing the brutality of the repression that awaited her, she nonetheless, peacefully held up a sign reading:

"Cambios en Cuba Sin Dictadura" ("Change in Cuba Without Dictatorship")

She was promptly arrested, stripped naked, searched and violently interrogated.

Two weeks later, four other women, Sara Marta Fonseca, Mercedes García Álvarez, Tania Maldonado Sánchez and Odalys Zurma González, continued her protest. Predictably, they too were arrested, but this time it took Castro's security forces 40-minutes to drag them away, as a gathering crowd of bystanders began to heckle the oppressors.

Or how about Iris Perez Aguilera?

This Afro-Cuban pro-democracy leader is the founder of the Rosa Parks Feminist Movement for Civil Rights. She undertakes weekly protests and sit-ins. As a result of these, Castro's secret police, on numerous occasions, has abused and brutally beaten her -- to the point of hospitalization.

Or how about Iris's husband, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez?"

Antunez, often referred to as Cuba's Nelson Mandela, spent 17-years as a political prisoner for protesting in the public square of his hometown. Today, still a young 46-years old, he is the leader of Cuba's civil disobedience movement.

Or how about Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet?

A charismatic physician, he spent nearly 11-years in political prison for his democratic advocacy as head of the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights. At a recent concert, U2's Bono honored Dr. Biscet as a true inspiration.

Or Marcelino Abreu, who has spent over 100 days on a hunger strike, protesting his unjust four-year prison-sentence. His crime was refusing to show a police officer identification after walking nearby the Castro regime's tourist-only Hotel Nacional. Abreu still holds that Cubans should be free to walk on the public streets and enter the public buildings of their homeland. Cuban authorities disagree.

Or the young rappers and rockers that defy the Cuban dictatorship through their lyrics and whose concerts and music festivals are under constant siege by the "Ministry of Culture" backed by the regime's armed police.

Or the bloggers and social media activists who brave the Castros' censors to inform the world of the harsh brutality and injustices the Cuban people face.

How can foreign travelers —ignorant of life under tyranny and repression– represent democratic ideals better than these icons who have spent years in political prison, and brave daily violence and beatings, to express their democratic aspirations and promote change in Cuba?

Let those of us who live in the United States stop insulting courageous pro-democracy leaders in Cuba with talk of "inspiring" them. The Cuban people don't need to be "inspired" by people abroad. They need our unwavering support for their struggle and for tangible pressure against the dictatorship that represses them.

Week after week the Las Damas de Blanco, the Ladies in White peacefully march in Cuba, and week after week, the criminal Castro dictatorship sends violent state sponsored mobs to terrorize them.  With impunity the Castro dictatorship is beating innocent women on the streets of Cuba.  Berta Antunez provided graphic, heartbreaking details of how the Castro's torture and terrorize women in Cuba before the recent NGO Summit in New York. Watch the video of her presentation here.

As Marc writes, we are watching, but we need to do more, we need to demand of our politicians and those in office throughout the free world do whatever is necessary to stop this murderous dictator from committing any more atrocities.  Mubarek had to go after  30 years in power.  The Castro's have been in power for 52 years!  Now is the time for change in Cuba.

Castro dictatorship again attacks Cuba Ladies In White

As promised by one of its mouthpieces, the Castro regime on Saturday physically attacked one of Cuba's most effective opposition groups by unleashing its goons to besiege the Damas De Blanco ("Ladies In White").

About 200 police officers and other thugs surrounded the Havana home of Laura Pollan, where about 30 Damas, including many from other parts of the country, had gathered before a planned march to a church to honor Our Lady of Charity on her feast day.

The goons, who apparently were brought in from outside the neighborhood, shouted insults, threats, etc. designed to intimidate the Damas, according to the Associated Press.

But there was more to the story.

Several of the Damas, including Pollan, were beaten by State Security officers when they tried to start their march, according to Pollan.

For more on today's events, which may signal a new wave of repression in Cuba, follow the Damas on Twitter @DamasDBlanco.

Berta Antunez, Women's rights activist in Cuba speaks at the Global Summit against Discrimination and Persecution. 

Powerful testimony on the horrors of Castro's Gulag.

En espanol here.

Really, is this the best propaganda Havana can come up with?  What an embarassment, considering that in Cuba before Castro,  the island nation of Cuba was ranked fourth in the region for rice production.  A fact from the UN FAO Yearbook 1961, p. 50.

Excerpt from Commodity Online:

Training course on rice cultivation techniques lectured by Vietnamese experts opened in the Cuban western province of Pinar del Rio on Sept. 20.

During the course, Vietnamese experts will introduce Cuban farmers techniques in rice production from cultivation and irrigation to care.

The course is part of a cooperation programme to promote Rice production in Cuban between the two countries, which also brought Vietnamese specialists to other seven provinces of Cuba . The programme is scheduled to go on until 2015.

2015?  Is that an end date for the regime? Optimistic aren't they?

VIENNA -- Iran was praised and Israel criticized Wednesday at a 151-nation meeting, with Cuba and Venezuela defending Tehran's right to run a nuclear program and Syria saying the Jewish state's undeclared nuclear arsenal is a threat to world peace.

The two Latin American nations are among Tehran's greatest supporters and Washington's strongest detractors, depicting it as the leader of privileged nations seeking to deprive developing countries of nuclear power and other benefits.

Syria, too is at odds with the U.S, and is the most vocal Arab critic of Israel. While the West sees Tehran as the greatest nuclear threat in the Mideast, Islamic countries assert that Israel and its undeclared atomic arsenal represents the most pressing danger to the region.

Since the start of the conference Monday, Iran has borne the brunt of criticism, with Western countries condemning its refusal to heed U.N. Security Council demands to stop activities that it could turn into making nuclear weapons and to open its program to greater IAEA perusal.

But Israel is due to come under pressure later in the week from Islamic and other developing countries for refusing to declare its nuclear weapons status and because it remains outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Wednesday's statements served as a prelude to the shifting focus from Iran to Israel - and hinted at the difficulties ahead come November, when Israel and its interlocutors come to the table in Vienna at an IAEA-hosted forum for preliminary talks on a Mideast nuclear arms-free zone.

Israel's "huge nuclear capabilities, which are yet to be subjected to the international control and supervision ... does not only threaten the region, but the whole world at large," Syrian Ambassador Bassam Sabbagh told the meeting. "Israel is behind the failure of all initiatives" meant to move toward the creation of a nuclear free Mideast, he added.

[...]

Cuba - Disbarred lawyer and Human Rights activist Rene Gomez Manzano spoke to Cuban-American congressional representatives by telephone during a Human Rights briefing hosted by the Cuban American Bar Association (CABA) in Washington DC.  Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart, David Rivera and Albio Sires participated in the briefing. 

Mr. Manzano said, "Lawyers like me are dedicated to the implementation of a democratic government in Cuba, an independent judiciary, and the establishment and respect for the rule of law."

Ladies in White founder Josefa Lopez Pena, wife of former political prisoner Miguel Sigler Amayo told those at the briefing, "The Cuban people are waking up, and it is important to continue to give dissidents on the island a voice."  "Those are the true heroes."

CABA officers said they wanted the briefing to raise awareness about Human Rights violations in Cuba.

The story, Activists in Cuba Vow an Egypt-Style Democracy Movement Will Sweep the Island, is at Fox News Latino.

The Ladies in White and other dissident groups are fearlessly standing up for their rights in spite of the arrests,  harassment, assaults, and threats by castroite thugs.  The acceleration of repression against dissidents since the "Arab Spring,"  is a measure of just how much the regime fears the rising civil disobedience.