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FROM
CUBA
Open letter to leaders of the U.S., Canada
and European Union 542126
By Jorge Olivera.
HAVANA, February 27 (Jorge Olivera) - Given
the notable worsening of repression in Cuba
against everyone who exercises rights consigned
by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
I've decided to write to you asking, today
more than ever, your solidarity and .
Actions undertaken by the government in
the last few months have reached such levels
that they could be considered state terrorism.
Gangs encouraged by the political police
have carried out beatings and raids, among
other forms of attack no less alarming.
The worst of this repressive spiral is
the impunity of the events. Real and potential
victims find themselves completely abandoned
since there is no institution in the country
to handle their complaints.
The Communist Party has monopolized for
47 years concepts like homeland, country
and state, without leaving any civic space
for those who differ with the current ideology.
The terror has reached a dimension that
keeps the Cuban family permanently frightened.
The defenselessness and the cruelty of the
repressors have taken root in the double
moral and the silence of the majority who
fear going to jail or receiving the stigma
of being a counterrevolutionary and immediately
being marginalized and suffering the inherent
punishment of a system that tramples on
one without anyone caring.
I am a witness of the abuse and cruelty.
I was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment
in April of 2003 for practicing journalism
without the supervision of official censors.
Sick, they placed me in a barely lit cell
infested with insects. I had to drink contaminated
water and the food was regularly served
in a state of putrefaction.
On December 6, 2004, after 20 months and
18 days of the cruelest treatment, the penal
authorities conditionally freed me for reasons
of health.
Now they plan to return me to jail. They
will not allow me or my family to go into
exile. Immigration officials deny us an
exit visa, a process that reflects on the
country in which we live.
To psychologically destabilize me and increase
my colon problems, court officials of the
municipality where I live have communicated
to me new rules to humiliate and blackmail
me.
Since February 21, I have been prohibited
to go outside the limits of Havana without
court authorization, nor to participate
in any celebrations or public events, and
they want to put me in a job chosen by the
court, which will supervise my conduct along
with of the Communist Party, unions
and others from the center where I'll be
assigned.
If I fail to do this, they threaten to
return me to prison. Their intentions are
arbitrary and tortuous, for which reason
I call your attention about what might happen
to me in the future.
I dearly plead for you to use your good
offices in favor of those in Cuba who work
for reconciliation and the peaceful transition
to democracy and pluralism.
Jorge Olivera is a Cuban independent
journalist. He was sentenced to 18 years
in prison on March 2003 and released from
jail in December 2004 on medical parole.
Versin
original en espaol
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