Cubans to protest as cruise ships leave Miami for Bahamas

Posted on Monday, 07.15.13

Cubans to protest as cruise ships leave Miami for Bahamas
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
JTAMAYO@ELNUEVOHERALD.COM

Cuban exile groups are planning a series of protests as cruise ships
leave the port of Miami for Nassau on Friday to highlight allegations
that Bahamian guards are abusing Cuban and other undocumented migrants
being held there.

A dozen or so vessels from the Democracy Movement will gather on the
north side of Government Cut at around 3:30 p.m. Friday so they will be
visible to passengers and crews as the ships leave port, said Movement
director Ramón Saúl Sánchez.

Sanchez said the vessels will display large signs with messages such as
"Bahamas Be Beautiful Again. Respect the Human Rights of the
Undocumented Migrants," while a large zeppelin will display a sign
saying "Democracy."

One Miami activist, Jesus Alexis Gómez, will launch a hunger strike
aboard one of the vessels and after that seaborne protest will continue
his fast under a tent set up next to the Torch of Freedom in downtown
Miami, Sánchez told a news conference Monday.

Gómez is credited with smuggling a video out of the immigration
detention center in Nassau, taken with a cell phone and purporting to
show a Bahamian guard kicking and screaming at some of the about 30
undocumented Cuban migrants held there.

The video sparked a storm of protests and complaints to the Bahamas
government when it was broadcast later on America TeVe. Bahamas Minister
of Foreign Affairs and Immigration Fred Mitchell rejected it as "a
manufactured attempt to create a damaging and defamatory impression of
The Bahamas."

Sánchez, whose Democracy Movement has staged several other protest
flotillas in the past, said the one Friday is designed to demand better
treatment for all undocumented migrants detained in Nassau, which
include Haitians, Brazilians, Colombians, Chinese and others.

It will also demand punishment for the detention center authorities who
have abused prisoners, and Bahamian government respect for those
undocumented migrants who ask for political asylum, he added.

Cuban migrants held in the Nassau center have long complained of
physical abuses, bad food and unsanitary conditions. Several inmates
sewed their lips shut in May to protest their conditions, and that
protest prompted the alleged guard's videotaped attack.

Also joining the seaborne protest Friday will be members of the exile
groups Agenda Cuba and the Cuban committee for Human Rights.

Source: "Cubans to protest as cruise ships leave Miami for Bahamas -
Cuba - MiamiHerald.com" -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/07/15/3501701/cubans-to-protest-as-cruise-ships.html