Following the death of Cuban prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo, the island’s communist authorities have been arresting and harassing dissidents. The World Youth Movement for Democracy highlights other disturbing cases and calls for action:
At approximately 7pm on February 23, human rights activist of the Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy Cristian Toranzo Fundichely, regional winner of the World Youth Movement for Democracy essay contest, was violently arrested at his home in Antilla, Holguin, Cuba. State Security agents and police violently invaded his home, savagely beating Cristian with repeated punches to the head and dragging him from his home to the police station. During this brutal home invasion, his wife and son were violently pushed against a wall, with his five year old son suffering an impact to the head, and witnessing the brutal violence against his father.
Once at the police station, Cristian was stripped of his clothing and once again beaten.
A short time later, he was taken from his cell and transported to the city of Holguín, where he learned that many other activists from various municipalities were also being held arbitrarily in completely isolated closed off cells. Cristian was released on the outskirts of the municipality of Banes on Thursday, February 25, 2010, left to find his way back to Antilla, and under threat of being charged with “pre-criminal social dangerousness.”
The Cuban government must know people outside Cuba are watching their actions and will not tolerate the murder of Cuban political prisoners or injustice toward human rights activists and prisoners of conscience who are imprisoned simply for exercising their fundamental human rights.
We must demand the release of Cuba’s 300+ political prisoners! We must denounce the murder of Orlando Zapata Tamayo!
Please contact your local Cuban Embassies or Consulates calling for Cuban authorities to respect citizens’ rights to express their opinions freely and exercise political rights. Your appeal can also include calls for the release of prisoners of conscience, with particular concern for Ariel Sigler Amaya and Normando Hernandez Gonzalez, and expressions of your concern for their well being, since they urgently require appropriate medical attention to avoid another murder in Castro’s prisons.
Ariel Sigler Amaya has been so poorly treated in prison that this former boxing instructor and democracy activist is now paralyzed and bound to a wheelchair. Normando Hernandez Gonzalez, also a prisoner of conscience, is an independent journalist who is being denied appropriate medical care for a range of illnesses including malabsorption syndrome.
Ariel Sigler Amaya is a Cuban prisoner of conscience recognized by Amnesty International.
According to Human Rights Watch’s 2009 Report “New Castro, Same Cuba”:
‘A boxer and physical fitness instructor, Ariel Sigler Amaya was in excellent shape when he was arrested in the March 2003 crackdown. The leader of an unofficial political group, he was sentenced along with his brother, Guido Sigler Amaya, to 20 years in prison for “acts against the independence or territorial integrity of the state.” By 2009, he said, his illnesses included “chronic gastritis, pulmonary emphysema, chronic pharyngitis, a bacterium, and gallbladder stones.” Having been moved between at least four different prisons and two military hospitals, at 47 years old Ariel can no longer walk, and is now confined to a wheelchair. “He already lost feeling in his legs—they are so thin that you can see the bones,” said his brother, Juan Francisco Sigler Amaya, following a February 2009 visit to the military hospital where Ariel was being held. “He doesn’t have mobility in his shoulders and arms. He has lost more than 100 pounds…. He is unrecognizable.” ‘
Normando Hernandez Gonzalez’s deteriorating health has been a source of acute concern for international rights groups like Amnesty International, the International Society for Human Rights , and the English and American PEN.
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