WITH CELL PHONES NOW LEGAL IN CUBA....THIS PRISONER CAN'T MAKE A PHONE CALL

this is the translation of the call a prisoner made to a human rights activist:

MAY 20, 2008:
SPEAKING: JUAN CARLOS GONZALEZ LEIVA ATTEMPTS TO INTERVIEW JOSE DANIEL FERRER GARCIA WHO IS IN PRISON IN CUBA

THE FOLLOWING IS A TRANSLATED TEXT OF THE PHONE CALL AND MR. FERRER GARCIA'S ATTEMPTS TO SPEAK TO GONZALEZ LEIVA

WE REPUDIATE VIOLENCE AND HATE AND CALL FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE...THOSE OF US WHO FIND OURSELVES IN PRISON DEFENDING ALL RIGHTS....NO....WHAT??

DANIEL FERRER (DF) AT THIS POINT IS INTERRUPTED BY AN OFFICIAL (A GUARD) AS HE SPEAKS TO GONZALEZ LEIVA (GL):


DF: THERE IS AN "OFFICIAL" HERE WHO IS POSSIBLY NEW HERE AND IS PLAYING THE JOKER AND DOESN'T WANT ME TO READ OUT LOUD. ARE YOU RECORDING ME?

GL: YES YES YES

DF: THIS GUY IS BEING THE IMPERTINENT ONE, BUT THIS ISN'T GONNA BE THE SAME AS THEY'RE USED TO IN OTHER OCCASSIONS...CALL SECURITY CALL WHOEVER...I'M NOT MOVING FROM HERE UNTIL I FINISH THIS CALL/RECORDING AND FROM HERE I WILL NOT MOVE AND IF YOU PULL ME THE PHONE COMES WITH ME...GO GET WHOM YOU WILL...AND DOWN WITH THE DICTATORSHIP, DOWN WITH COMMUNISM, DOWN WITH FIDEL AND LONG LIVE CUBA FREE!

DF: YOU ARE NOT TAKING MY PHONE....YOU'RE NOT PASSING ME FROM THIS POINT....PERMISSION! NOTHING! PERMISSION? NOTHING!
AIN'T NOTHING DOING! GO GET WHO YOU WANT. I AM TIED TO THIS PHONE. TO GET ME MOVING FROM HERE YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO KILL ME!

(GUARD IS HEARD IN THE BACKGROUND ARGUING WITH DF)

GUARD: NO MAN, NO ONE'S GONNA KILL YOU.

DF: OVER MY DEAD BODY ARE YOU GETTING ME OUT OF HERE

GUARD: WE'RE NOT GOING TO KILL YOU.

DF: I'M NOT LETTING GO OF THIS PHONE. THIS IS MY LIFE MY FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION.NO ONE TAKES THAT AWAY FROM ME.

GUARD: NO BUT BY THE PHONE....

DF: BY PHONE WHAT? I'VE BEEN IN PRISON FIVE YEARS SPEAKING THE TRUTH ABOUT (CUBAN) PRISONS AND I AM GOING TO CONTINUE SPEAKING ABOUT THEM. I DON'T KNOW IF YOU'RE NEW IN THIS PRISON OR IF YOU CAME FROM THE PLANET MARS. BUT I'M JOSE DANIEL FERRER GARCIA (indistinct) WILL CONTINUE TO STATE VIA TELEPHONE WHAT GOES ON IN PRISON IN CUBA.

GUARD: ...ANOTHER PLANET

DF: I'M PRETTY SURE...BUT FROM THIS POINT I WILL NOT LET GO OF THIS PHONE...YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO KILL ME TO TAKE THIS PHONE FROM ME

GUARD: NO MAN, THERE IS NO NEED IN KILLING YOU

DF: NO, BUT YOU'LL DO SOMETHING, I DON'T KNOW BUT I DO KNOW I WILL MAINTAIN THIS PHONE IN MY HAND. I AM NOT LETTING GO OF THIS PHONE

GL: THAT'S WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO WITH THESE TYRANTS DANIEL

DF: indistinct.....NO, THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE TO GET REINFORCEMENTS I DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE GOING TO DO

GL: DON'T LET THEM COUNT THIS TIME AGAINST YOU

DF: NO I HAVEN'T BEGUN TO SPEAK YET...IT'S 25 MINUTES TO SAY WHAT I AM GOING TO SAY...WHAT I WANT TO SAY. OF COURSE I WON'T LET IT COUNT...I HAVEN'T BEGUN TO READ YET. THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO SILENCE JOSE DANIEL, THAT'S KILLING HIM

GUARD: WE WON'T KILL YOU YOU GOT 25 MINUTES ONLY. (indistinct) FINE. BUT LISTEN TO ME

DF: I WON'T LISTEN TO YOU

GL: TELL HIM THAT YOU'LL LISTEN AFTER YOU FINISH SPEAKING. TELL HIM TO GET LOST

INDISTINCT...

SOME OTHER MAN INTERRUPTS AND STATED "I'VE BEEN INFORMED OF THIS SITUATION..."

DF: HE (THE GUARD) SHOULD HAVE NEVER COME...THERE ARE TWO (PERSONS?) THAT ARE DESIGNATED TO GIVE ME THE CHANCE TO USE THE PHONE...IF (HE?) DOESN'T KNOW ABOUT THE RIGHT TO ALLOW ME TO SPEAK TO SAY WHAT I WANT TO SAY, WHAT I THINK, FEEL, NO? IF HE DOESN'T KNOW IT LET HIM FIND OUT...

ANOTHER MAN SPEAKS IN THE BACKGROUND.

DF: I WILL STAY HERE WITH YOU. I WON'T LET GO OF THIS PHONE AND I AM NOT GOING WITH YOU.

GUARD: indistinct YOU HAVE TO LET GO!

DF: NO! FROM HERE I AM NOT MOVING UNTIL I USE MY 25 MINUTES WILL NOT LEAVE...IN WHAT I FIND CONVENIENT... I WON'T LEAVE

GUARD: HANG UP THE PHONE

DF: I WON'T HANG UP THE PHONE...YOU WILL NOT PUT HANDCUFFS ON ME...YOU WILL NOT PUT HANDCUFFS ON ME...YOU WILL NOT.. DOWN WITH THE DICTATORSHIP!...DOWN WITH COMMUNISM!....YOU....


AT THIS POINT DANIEL'S PHONE WAS TAKEN FROM HIM AND HE WAS BEATEN MERCILESSLY BY THE GUARD

THERE HAVE BEEN HUNDREDS OF ACTS OF REPUDIATION AGAINST PEACEFUL ANTI-GOVERNMENT ACTIVISTS SINCE JAN 2008 IN CUBA

HOLY FATHER PRAY FOR OUR OPPRESSORS

THE ORIGINAL STORY: CUBAN STUDENTS ARRESTED IN CUBA ON NOVEMBER 30 2007

Friday, November 30, 2007
Cuban students arrested

CubaWatcher, my collegaue over at Babalú, has some disturbing news about the Cuban tyranny acting, well, like tyrants:

From the Directorio Democrático Cubano comes word that four youths, among them three members of the Cuban Movement of Youths for Democracy (MCJD) were arrested by state political police last night, November 29th. The activists were taken to the National Revolutionary Police Station "Sanja y Dragones" after having joined a sit-in demonstration that had been going on for more than a week outside the "Aguilera" National Revolutionary Police Station in central Havana. Protesters had gathered there to press for the release of jailed dissident Juan Bermudez Toranzo.

Those arrested had earlier taken part in a press conference where 5,000 signatures supporting the "University Students Without Borders" project had been submitted before the public. The project advocates university autonomy through free expression and freedom of association at Cuban universities.

Folks, we need to get the word out regarding these arrests. The more press these arrests get, the better - as international attention may prevent these young dissidents from being subjected to harsh beatings at the hands of the Cuban state security apparatus. Please forward this information to as many contacts as possible.

With these arrests, the Cuban dictatorship, despite the best efforts of its apologists here and around the world, shows what it is really made of. They just can't help themselves.

Please remember these brave students in your thoughts and prayers.

SEPTEMBER 2007: POLITICAL PRISONERS CONTINUE TO SUFFER

According to recently released political prisoner Jorge Luis García Pérez “Antúnez”, they were taken to the Technical Department of Investigations known as “Cien y Aldabó” in the City of Havana. There, they were incarcerated in cells with inhumane conditions while being physically abused by authorities. The group included various female activists.

“Yesmi Elena, who was with me, was beaten and strip searched by three female guards at the '10 de Octubre' Police Station. She has a wound above her right lung, and has scratches and beatings on her head. When they finished with her, they proceeded to beat me, I have beatings on my head, scratches, also on my hand, and they ripped by pants trying to take them off to strip search me,” informed Idania Yánes Contreras from Santa Clara.

After being repeatedly mistreated for several hours, the activists were released under threat of being arrested again. Among those arrested were 26 activists from Villa Clara.

“What has just taken place demonstrates that the peaceful opposition in Cuba is united. No organization prevailed over any other during this activity. No specific names were mentioned. We were all there as members of the opposition. Our only goal was to support and express our solidarity with our imprisoned brothers,” Antúnez told the Cuban Democratic Directorate from Placetas, in the province of Villa Clara shortly after being arrested.

RECENT PRISON TALES

This from babalublog.com:

Cuban journalist released from prison

Cuban independent journalist Armando Betancourt Reina was released from prison on Monday, after completing a 15-month sentence for being a "public disorder." (He was arrested in May 2006 while covering the eviction of some poor residents from their housing.
More than ever, the journalist now is better suited to tell the real stories of the real Cuba, especially the castro brothers' gulag, telling Cuban Democratic Directorate:
“This 15-month imprisonment has been an important experience. Although it might not have caused me psychological damage because it was a short time, it was a time where I was able to experience firsthand the situation and living conditions of Cuba’s prisoners."
For instance, Betancourt says he saw this:
“Guards continue beating prisoners, and they do it in such a way that other prisoners do not see it, so that it will not become known around the world. They take them out of the cell block and take them to a separate location. They beat them, take them to isolation cells and return them to the cell blocks when their bruises are gone. I was there and lived it. I can confirm that human rights are being violated in Cuban prisons now as they always have been.”
With Betancourt's release, there are now 29 independent journalists in Cuban jails.

THE WILL TO FREEDOM

CUBA
Legless Cuban survivor finally reaches U.S.
After 15 years and the loss of both legs, a Cuban rafter finally arrived in Miami to tell about his harrowing escape.
BY WILFREDO CANCIO ISLA
El Nuevo Herald

ROBERTO KOLTUN/EL NUEVO HERALD
Amado Veloso Vega lost both legs to a mine as he tried to slip into Gitmo in 1992.

He had managed to crawl through the third barrier between Cuban territory and the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo when the warning flares lit the night sky.
Amado Veloso Vega thought he'd stay there till dawn, confident the Cuban guards could not enter the mine-laden strip dubbed ''no-man's land.'' But then he heard shots, and when he tried to move, a mine exploded, destroying his legs and flinging him 15 feet.
With no strength to shout, Veloso lay there until he heard the soldiers approach.
It was the beginning of a 15-year odyssey to get to the United States that ended this week. Veloso, 36, arrived in Miami on Monday with a U.S. State Department humanitarian visa.
Veloso is headed for Louisville, Ky., where the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which sponsored him, has found him a home.
''I'm still pinching myself, because I can't believe it. I'm in Miami!'' he said this week at his Miami hotel. ``I want to laugh because I believe I suffered enough. In Cuba, I was a walking dead man.''
The details of his horrific 1992 experience with the mine remain vivid today. ''Strips of flesh dangled from my legs. I was disfigured and my mouth was torn,'' he recalled. ``I couldn't react, though I didn't lose consciousness altogether.''
He'll never forget one man and what he said. Vega, a short man in uniform, told another that Veloso ''wouldn't make it alive'' to the hospital in Guantánamo.
''They started to play with me. They bayoneted me in the hand and in the leg and then pulled me off the fence,'' Veloso said, showing his scars.
Veloso was taken directly to the morgue. There, a doctor wouldn't give up, injecting him with adrenaline. Veloso was revived.
He slowly returned to health, but his nightmare wasn't over. For the attempted escape, Cuban authorities sentenced Veloso to two years of detention at his Havana home. A mystery remains: The mine that did so much damage was in Cuban territory, but at the time, some U.S.-planted mines were in the area, too.
Veloso said he tried to remake his life but that even relatives and friends turned their backs on him. He sought prosthetic legs at a Havana hospital. ``They concluded that my accident was due to my attempt to leave the country illegally and told me the [prostheses] they had were for revolutionaries and fighters back from Angola.''
Then he met activist Francisco Chaviano -- now a political prisoner in Cuba -- who arranged for the Cuban American National Foundation to send him a wheelchair. The chair was presented to Veloso in the name of Jorge Mas Canosa, the organization's founder. Veloso and a medical specialist friend fashioned a pair of plaster prostheses.
Early in 1994, Veloso applied for a refugee visa at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, but he says the office turned him down. He then wrote to U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who answered his letter and agreed to support his application, as did Rep. Lincoln Díaz Balart.
The association with Miami exile politicians caught the attention of the Cuban government. 'State Security constantly visited my home. `Who are you? First, Mas Canosa. Then, Ros-Lehtinen and Díaz-Balart. What are you up to?' they would ask me,'' Veloso said.
During the 1994 Cuban rafter crisis, Veloso tried to escape on a makeshift boat, but he was caught. Ensuing attempts failed as well.
``I lost track of all the arrests and fines. Something compelled me to look for what I couldn't find in Cuba: respect for a human being, respect for life and the right to overcome my handicap.''
In September 2006, during the police raids that preceded the Summit of Non-Aligned Countries in Havana, Veloso made his final attempt to flee. With 15 others he bought a homemade boat made of aluminum tubes. Police intercepted the others before they arrived at the beach, so he decided to travel alone from Cajío Beach in Havana.
'The boat was known as a `tube of toothpaste.' They are made of six aluminum tubes and cost about $4,000,'' he said.
The U.S. Coast Guard intercepted him 27 miles from the Mexican island of Cozumel and sent him to the place that reminded him of his personal tragedy: the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo.
There he remained for nine months, working as a bowling alley assistant. Part of the money he earned he sent to his mother, wife and two children who remain in Cuba.
''That people would risk their lives, like Amado did, that they would risk everything, clearly demonstrates the desperation of Cubans on the island,'' Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, told El Nuevo Herald on Tuesday.
Today Veloso wants to place flowers on Mas Canosa's grave. ''When I look at it from afar, I feel it was worth it,'' he said of his odyssey. ``It's a high price, but it's the price of liberty.''
wcancio@elnuevoherald.com

EXAMPLE OF CUBAN AIDS DEATH CAMP

We greatly appreciate the work done by Cuba Archive. Their work is immensely important and will be honored in this website. In fact it is one of the reasons why this website was created.


translation of an article from Cuba Archive:


Ignacio Estrada Cepero, Agencia Jóvenes sin Censura Bitácora Cubana, 2 de febrero de 2007, Quemado de Güines



On Monday, January 29, 2007 a prisoner with AIDS died by hanging, Ricardo Pérez Hernández, known as "Papillo", according to reports from the activist for Human Rights José Vicente Ribalta Carrazana, by telephone from Territorial AIDS Prison, sita en Carretera Planta Mecánica, Kilómetro 1 ½, Ciudad de Santa Clara, Villa Clara. Ricardo Pérez Hernández was in jail for common crimes and it is not known as of now why he committed suicide, although he did it in a punishment cell. Ribalta Carrazana added: "Papillo announced publicly to the prisoners and officials that he wasn't going to stop until he killed himself. Pérez Carrazana was emotionally unstable, commonly found in persons who suffer from HIV/AIDS and have prison terms”. According to the source, "Ricardo Pérez Hernández, know to us as Papillo, committed suicide. I don't blame him for what he did, I blame the prison regime that exists in Cuba and its leaders. I blame the Jail and Prison Directory of jails and prisons of Villa Clara and the the psychologist Vilma for the misfeasance in matters such as these. It happens daily, not only deaths, self infliction of wounds including burns, amputations of fingers, cut veins and so on. Public opinion and the Cuban people must know what is going on in Cuban prisons”. The rest of the prisoners held a minute of silence this Tuesday for the deceased, in addition to giving condolences by telephone to the family of ‘Papillo’.


Youth Without Censors Press Agency (The Cuban government denies this agency its legitimacy).

CUBAN GOVERNMENT DOES NOT STOP ITS KILLING MACHINE

IN 2007:

Lázaro Baró Montalvo, age 27, died in prison in January 2007 for unreported reasons.

Jeile Rodríguez Aguilar, age 19, died January 25, 2007 after a beating by prison guards that was officially reported as a suicide.

Ricardo Pérez Hernández, reportedly committed suicide on January 25, 2007 while being held in a punishment cell in a special prison for persons afflicted with AIDS. Was said to be emotionally unstable

Rangel Enrique Pons, age 34, assassinated by police on March 20, 2007

ENEMIES AND MERCENARIES OF THE STATE

this is from www.rsf.org Reporters Without Borders:

Updated information on imprisoned Cuban journalists

In Cuba, any journalist who does not work for the official media is considered to be an “enemy of the state” or a “mercenary”. The changeover at the summit of the state between the Castro brothers and the promises made by Cuba in relation to human rights at the Non-Aligned Summit in Havana have unfortunately done nothing to alter this state of affairs.
There are currently 24 of them who have paid with their freedom for having founded an independent news agency, written for a dissident review or spoken to a media in the Cuban diaspora. Some are serving prison sentences of 14-27 years. Others are being held without trial. Another, despite being put on trial, has never been told what his sentence was. All of them however suffer the same overcrowding, appalling prison conditions and mistreatment from the prison authorities that are the lot of more than 300 prisoners of opinion on the island.
In 2006, Cuba is still the second biggest prison in the world for journalists after China. Three years ago it was the first, following an unprecedented crackdown which saw the arrest of 27 journalists, speedily tried and sentenced for alleged collaboration with the United States against “Cuba’s economy and national independence” under the terms of the 88 law or “gagging law”. Seven of these journalists who were victims of the “black spring” have since had their sentences suspended for health reasons, including Raúl Rivero and Manuel Vázquez Portal who have both gone into exile abroad.
For all that, the regime has never loosened its grip on the independent press. The daily experience of dissident journalists is of harassment, summonses and sudden periods in the custody of State Security (the political police). Three were arrested in 2005 and a fourth in May 2006. The “justice system” has never formally charged them.
Reporters Without Borders is appealing for people to sign a petition calling for the release of Cuba’s 24 imprisoned journalists.

FREE MINDS

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 7, 2002. "Cuban prisoners' minds still free" by Raul Rivero

By Raul Rivero

Rivero honors Chaviano Raul Rivero November 7, 2002 The Miami Herald Cuban Prisoners’ Minds Still Free An officer sat on my chest, wrapped my head in my sweater and asked me if I knew him. "I said No, and he immediately hit me on the forehead with a blunt instrument, giving me a five-stitch wound." This is the story told -- against a background of creaking hinges -- by blind lawyer Juan Carlos González Leiva in the operations unit of State Security in Holguín, Cuba. It's an unpleasant account, an episode that the American and European Left covers up and avoids and that some media outlets put aside, using instead a string of slogans from native functionaries or a hurried interview with an official writer. The truth is that that level of suffering -- and that González Leiva and nine other members of a human-rights foundation from Ciego de Avila are still in prison, awaiting trial after seven months -- do not advance the deal that U.S. merchants propose to make with the administrators of this island prison. No matter. Cuba's trade comrades have the high duty to valiantly work to achieve socialism's new victories, and they won't be deterred by the agony of a few people kept locked up by the patriotic forces for God-knows-what grave crimes. For similar reasons -- comrades must have concluded -- there's no need to mention the cases of 26 other Cuban dissidents, detained in Havana last February, who just have ended a hunger strike that lasted more than 40 days. The strikers demanded to be released because, "We have not committed any crime and, during eight months of confinement, have been unable to talk to a lawyer; and we have not been brought before any court of justice." These prisoners have no resources. They are ghosts behind bars that render them even more invisible: o There lies journalist Bernardo Arévalo Padrón, ill and surrounded by criminals, imprisoned since 1997 in Ariza, in Cuba's south-central region. o Farther away, until his release last week, was Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet, clinging to God and poetry, a guest under duress in an Holguín dungeon. o Imprisoned in the far-eastern region is young Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina, a student leader who has been assaulted and beaten in his cell. o Somewhere in mid-island is José Luis Pérez Antúnez, who has appeared since 1992 on every list of Cuban political prisoners. Nothing has eased his via crucis, and his case is so old that some might think it's part of the letterhead used for the annual reports. o Suffering in Havana is Francisco Chaviano, a 15-year sentence on his shoulders. He's another folk figure in the documents that demand freedom for those men who, inside Cuba, claimed independence of thought. Although all came from the most legitimate and modest areas of society, the machinery of government and its henchmen converted them into enemies of the people. They have nothing material to offer, none of their treasures are tangible. All they have are feelings, ideas, dreams -- elements with no value for dogmas and intolerance, and mere mist in terms of money. Their pain should not resound in echoes because they're neither powerful nor slaves of the powerful. Lying in their filthy corners, longing for freedom, they suffer by themselves, not seeing themselves as spokesmen for the working class. As forgotten men, their torment might as well stay within their families. Because the beaches, the land, the rivers and mountains of their country -- what little is left -- are in the hands of their jailers, pragmatic and cheerful people who are open to commerce and democracy.