BE KILLED
2007-08-13.
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas
Havana, August 8, 2007.- Cuban political prisoners are confined
alongside common prisoners who occasionally threaten and harass them,
sometimes at the encouragement of the authorities. The environment of
violence, corruption and aggression dominates in the prisons, in which
dozens of Cubans have been unjustly confined for long prison sentences
for peacefully defending human rights.
According to a phone call that we received from the Kilo 8 Prison and
from testimonies by the families of the political prisoners, on August
29th three common prisoners were able to get past a guard and go into a
prison cell, from post number 7, where they attacked with a sharp weapon
another prisoner who it seems they wanted to kill. After a few minutes
various guards entered the prison cell and beat the three attackers
badly. As a result of the beating, two of the three prisoners that had
forcibly entered the cell died. The prisoner who was the victim of the
attack by the other three as well as one of his attackers, were gravely
injured in this incident and their fates remain unknown.
The peaceful political prisoners Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta and José
Daniel Ferrer García are among those confined in this prison. Violence
and bloody encounters are frequent among common prisoners and also as a
result of abusive and cruel actions by the guards. In this prison known
as Kilo 8, as in all prisons in Cuba, political prisoners have a high
probability of being beaten and they suffer from great stress and
tension as a result of being confined in cruel and degrading conditions
in which their lives are in great danger.
Confining political prisoners with common prisoners has been quite rare
in Cuban history, even in the previous dictatorship, but now it has
become a perverse practice on the part of the authorities that are
enraged against these people only because they have dared to defend and
promote the rights of Cubans. The alternative to this confinement
alongside common prisoners has been isolation in punishment cells or in
conditions that are inappropriate for even animals.
The language and death threats are not exclusively made by some of the
common prisoners, but also by the prison authorities and the State
Security. According to a phone call by Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta to Ana
Belkis Ferrer García on August 2nd, in Kilo 8 prison this prisoner was
driven to an office in which various prison officials and State Security
were present. These officials threatened to "execute" him and told him
that he "would be killed in the event that something happened."
These death threats, direct and expressed by part of a group of men and
women from the State Security and of the prison officials, do not
require descriptions or explanations, since they are simply announcing
to them that they will be assassinated.
All Cubans must be made aware of the deadly dangers and degrading
conditions endured by those who are imprisoned for only defending the
human rights of all Cubans. But the inhumane and degrading conditions
and the environment of blood and terror exist in many Cuban prisons in
which the common prisoners as well as political prisoners are victims.
For many years we have called upon all institutions, governments and
sensible people to raise their voices in defense of those who are
imprisoned in Cuba for defending Human Rights. But the voices inside
and outside of Cuba are still few and many times they are drowned out by
those who shout lies more loudly, or they are silenced by the false
prudence of those who want to play a role without assuming the
consequences of confronting the injustice.
For more information or to obtain a copy of the press release, please
contact: Francisco De Armas, Julio Hernández, International
Representatives, Christian Liberation Movement, (787) 549-1805,
fdamcl@cs.com
http://www.miscelaneasdecuba.net/web/article.asp?artID=11153
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