2010-03-01 / Miriam Celaya (Huffington Post)
Until last February 23rd, it seemed that the imprisonment of the Black Spring 75 had been one of Castro's utmost blunders. The death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, one of the civic fighters entrapped back then by the strong wave of repression unleashed by the dictatorship, goes to show that the events that took place almost seven years ago continue to have repercussions against the very regime that carried them out.
Not content with having allowed Orlando even a modicum of comfort, to spend his last days among his people, the dictatorship has launched its wolf packs onto the streets to suppress legitimate demonstrations of solidarity and respect by other Cubans for the courage and the resistance of a man who had the high-mindedness to confront the most powerful and protracted dictatorial government Cuba's history has known. Many independent Cubans were detained, others were threatened, and police operations raged throughout the day on February 24th.
By a strange coincidence, this February 24th, 2010, a date of historic significance for Cubans, was marked by fear, not because of the dignified and free citizens who went to the home of Laura Pollan, one of the Ladies in White, to sign the book of condolences, or on account of those who threw flowers into the sea in memory of the Brothers to the Rescue, also killed in the downing of their aircraft, another one of the "glorious" actions of Castro and his spies, nor by those who attended Orlando's funeral services. Now, the fear of the regime and the mercenaries at its service is palpable. They cannot conceive the power of shame, are ignorant of the virtue that envelops the sense of decorum, and cannot, even remotely, understand that freedom is a natural gift that is carried inside and it is -- therefore -- impossible to eliminate with steel bars. The Black Spring 75, Orlando Zapata, political prisoners and all of us who are disobedient are free. ...more
2013-04-22 / The Miami Herald
Cuba saw a record number of “politically motivated and at times violent short-term detentions” during 2012, according to the U.S. State Department’s “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices,” which was released Friday...more
2013-04-18 / The Washington Post
Members of Cuba’s Ladies in White opposition group will finally pick up Europe’s top human rights prize from 2005 in person next week in Belgium, the European Union and the daughter of the group’s former leader said Wednesday...more
2013-04-16 / The Washington Post
Cubans were relieved Monday by the announcement that the late leader Hugo Chavez’s hand-picked successor had been elected Venezuela’s new president, apparently allowing their country to dodge a threatened cutoff of billions of dollars in subsidized oil...more
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