Banished dissidents denounce bad treatment in Spain

Two Cuban prisoners of conscience who were banished from the island and forced into exile in Spain are denouncing the treatment they are receiving from the Spanish government. The article, of course, is in Spanish because the English-speaking media is not all that interested in these types of stories.

Here’s a quick translation of the first few paragraphs of the Europa Press article:

Ex-Political Prisoners from Cuba denounce the living conditions in Spain

Former Cuban political prisoners Víctor Orlando Arroyo and Normando Hernández are denouncing the situation in which dissidents find themselves in Spain after being released as a product of dialog between the Catholic Church and the Cuban government, find themselves.

Arroyo, who arrived September 8 after spending seven years imprisoned, said that at least 12 families continue living in the Hostel Wellington in Madrid where they have not received the medical attention they need, and that many of the dissidents traveled with family members that were ill.

“The situation since we arrived has not been totally what we expected. Here we have had many difficulties, and not all of them real since in my judgment they were fabricated because the situation of each of the prisoner and their families was not properly assessed,” Arroyo said in a declaration to Europa Press.

The member of the opposition vehemently denounced the conditions in which his only family finds themselves. “My son is diabetic and since we arrived here he has been injecting himself with insulin we brought from Cuba. My daughter is pregnant and about to give birth, but no has visited us. The medical attention here is miserable,” he commented.

Now there are going to be a lot of people who will read this and say these Cubans are a bunch of ingrates. The Spanish government, they will say, got them out of prison, brought them to freedom in Spain, and they should be thanking Spain instead of complaining.

Well, here’s the deal:

It was Spain, not these dissidents, who negotiated this deal.
It was Spain who took it upon themselves to help the Cuban dictatorship banish these men and their family members from the island and force them into exile.

Therefore, it is now Spain’s responsibility to ensure these men and their family members are taken care of.