One of today’s must-reads is ths report from imprisoned Cuban journalist Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta, describing how he and other prisoners at the Kilo 8 prison were punished after they commemorated Cuban Independence Day on Sunday, May 20.
It is a riveting report, which Herrera concludes like this:
The only thing we did was commemorate May 20th and José Daniel Ferrer García made a beautiful introduction, later I spoke and gave a message of non-cooperation, to not cooperate with a regime that brings about agony as I told them about mothers that deserve the opportunity to see their children. We ask for amnesty for all political prisoners because the prisons have truly become pits of terror and prisoners are losing their lives condemned to excessive sentences for the slightest offenses. I call on the international community to take part in this situation that has become so tense. Our lives are in danger. I know that any moment I could be beaten for one of these protests which we will continue to carry out.
Unfortunately, this is a specific call to the Spanish government, which is defending the terrorist system of Fidel Castro, so that they see that in no way are human rights respected in Cuba, that prisoners are not protected, and that there is no organization or institution to protect them here in Cuba. The cruelty shown by the military officials is indescribable. I am only given 10 minutes to speak and this is very quick, so I apologize if there are things I cannot express to you, but I would like for people in the democratic world to take note of what is happening in this pit of terrorism that is Kilo 8.
Read the whole thing here.
Armando Valladares has written that when he was US representative to the UN, the Spanish diplomats there publicly stated Spain had no evidence of human rights violations in Cuba when in fact it certainly did. But it gets better. Spain refused to admit what it knew for the exact same reason the Spanish Parliament recently defeated a motion calling for the release of political prisoners in Cuba: it would support the US position, and of course we can’t have THAT. Doesn’t matter what horrors Cubans may be going through, in prison or out of it, what matters is that Spain is STILL fighting the damn Spanish-American War of 1898. These people are beneath contempt.