While we celebrate the birth of Christ and enjoy spending time with our families, let us not forget the political prisoners languishing in the prisons of socialist tyrannies. They may be without their families, but they shouldn’t be without our prayers.
Via Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter:
Call to action for a Christmas without political prisoners in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua
Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. – Hebrews 13:3
Enjoying the holidays with family and friends? Getting ready for the New Year’s celebrations? Please take a moment from the festivities and think of those locked up and mistreated for exercising their fundamental human rights.
Partial lists provided by internal human rights groups indicate that there are at least 1,034 political prisoners in Cuba, 235 political prisoners in Nicaragua, and 274 political prisoners in Venezuela spending the holiday season behind bars. At a minimum 1,543 fellow humans are arbitrarily detained and being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment for matters of conscience.
This has been going on in the Americas for over sixty years, and for too long it has been normalized.
Let us show our solidarity with those who are unjustly imprisoned on account of their political convictions. The late Vaclav Havel, interviewed by Amnesty International in 2011, understood the need for persons of goodwill to take action. “It’s up to all of us to try, and those that say that individuals are not capable of changing anything are only looking for excuses.”
Some psychologists argue that as the number of victims increase into the hundreds, and thousands that compassion collapses out of the human fear of being overwhelmed.
These are three cases, one for Venezuela, one for Cuba and one for Nicaragua
Continue reading HERE.