Misunderstandings / Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado

Graphic taken from recursosparaelcamino.blogspot.com

Present relations between Church and State and the Papal visit have turned unbelievably controversial. Nonetheless, for Catholics and devotees of the Virgin of la Caridad del Cobre, the arrival of the Pontiff Benedict XVI in Cuba will culminate the Jubilee Year for the 400th anniversary of the discovery of our Beloved Mother and Patroness. For 365 days, our beloved “Cachita” has made a pilgrimage throughout our country, surrounded by the faithful who came to pay tribute to a replica of her image, to ask for her grace and to reaffirm themselves in faith.

Across the years, many Cubans from different places called for the reconciliation of the Cuban State with the Catholic Church, for religious freedom, for the return of the Church’s property, the rights of parishioners to processions, the respect of pastoral and evangelic spaces, etc. And now that a climate of compromise has been established between the Cuban clergy and the authorities, a political and propagandistic bitterness has reawakened in some sectors with contradictory edgings. Which is it? Do you want reconciliation or confrontation? I really don’t understand. Now it turns out that the Marxist government, which fought, marginalized and harassed the ecclesiastic institution and its faithful — and wielded the presupposition that religion is the opiate of the masses — is now the good, that which defends her, as well as her flock. Doubtlessly, there is an interested and intelligent manipulation behind this change of roles.

The Catholic Church always has its doors open to all. We will attend the Mass that the Successor of Peter will celebrate in the Plaza of all Cubans, that although it has been militarized, it is public. It was constructed during the previous government, it is civic and in it officiated Pope John Paul II. We will go — as one must — to listen to the Liturgy of the Word and to receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

The Mass which will be officiated by the Vicar of Christ and Maximum Authority of the Vatican on Wednesday the 28th, will welcome Cubans who attend to join in fellowship and pay tribute to the Word of God with faith and gratitude. It doesn’t seem fair that people should have to use the establishment of a religion as an excuse to voice a claim to their rights.

Translated by: JT

March 27 2012

Misunderstandings

Graphic taken from recursosparaelcamino.blogspot.com

Present relations between Church and State and the Papal visit have turned unbelievably controversial. Nonetheless, for Catholics and devotees of the Virgin of la Caridad del Cobre, the arrival of the Pontiff Benedict XVI in Cuba will culminate the Jubilee Year for the 400th anniversary of the discovery of our Beloved Mother and Patroness. For 365 days, our beloved “Cachita” has made a pilgrimage throughout our country, surrounded by the faithful who came to pay tribute to a replica of her image, to ask for her grace and to reaffirm themselves in faith.

Across the years, many Cubans from different places called for the reconciliation of the Cuban State with the Catholic Church, for religious freedom, for the return of the Church’s property, the rights of parishioners to processions, the respect of pastoral and evangelic spaces, etc. And now that a climate of compromise has been established between the Cuban clergy and the authorities, a political and propagandistic bitterness has reawakened in some sectors with contradictory edgings. Which is it? Do you want reconciliation or confrontation? I really don’t understand. Now it turns out that the Marxist government, which fought, marginalized and harassed the ecclesiastic institution and its faithful — and wielded the presupposition that religion is the opiate of the masses — is now the good, that which defends her, as well as her flock. Doubtlessly, there is an interested and intelligent manipulation behind this change of roles.

The Catholic Church always has its doors open to all. We will attend the Mass that the Successor of Peter will celebrate in the Plaza of all Cubans, that although it has been militarized, it is public. It was constructed during the previous government, it is civic and in it officiated Pope John Paul II. We will go — as one must — to listen to the Liturgy of the Word and to receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

The Mass which will be officiated by the Vicar of Christ and Maximum Authority of the Vatican on Wednesday the 28th, will welcome Cubans who attend to join in fellowship and pay tribute to the Word of God with faith and gratitude. It doesn’t seem fair that people should have to use the establishment of a religion as an excuse to voice a claim to their rights.

Translated by: JT

March 27 2012

Benedict XVI Christian or Communist / Anddy Sierra Alvarez

From the beginning of last week they have increased the police in the streets with the help of the students from the Ministry of the Interior (MINIT), young people dressed in a green with a dark blue jacket that says “Police” on the back.

The maintenance of the streets where Benedict XVI will pass is remarkable but to whom is the Pope going to speak? To the people, to the government, because no citizen with ideas different from those of the Castro brothers is going to be allowed to go to the Plaza.

The increase in detentions, the control and the persecutions are inevitable if we are passive, non-violent, what is there to be afraid of? There will be an increase in people who, every day, join our struggle and it will be an opportunity to put an end to the dictatorship because the Catholic Church has the power to manage this.

March 26 2012

Mass of Revolutionary Reaffirmation / Miriam Celaya

From Diario de Cuba/from Getty Images

It is possible that the maximum leader of the Catholic Church doesn’t know that when he officiates at the public mass in Civic Plaza* in Havana on March 28, he will not only be offering his blessing to the people of Cuba, but also sealing the first act of Revolutionary Reaffirmation called by the Cuban government under umbrella of a religious celebration, with the consent and approval of the Catholic hierarchy of the Island.

It could not be otherwise because — following the guidelines emanating from the olive-green throne of the supreme pontiff of the Antilles — all Cuban workers and students have been called to attend the event, transportation included, to ensure attendance at the Mass, with no shortage of cases where those heretics who dare to miss the appointment have been threatened with the loss of a day’s pay.

The official orders are clear and precise: At 6:00 the “faithful” (to the government) should be gathered at each collection point and confirm their attendance by signing in on a list that will be kept by a trusted official. It is strictly forbidden “to carry signs or shout Revolutionary slogans,” they must remain “silent” and take the place assigned to them in the Plaza. With the intention of better control over any possible situation that violates the established emotional boundaries, Civic Square has been carefully marked off in a grid, and every ram has his assigned fold so that there will be no agitation in the herd. Correspondingly, each grid has been assigned an unspecified number of law enforcement and political police, who must be suitably dressed in civilian clothes.

In recent days, in an unprecedented move, the administrators of numerous workplaces have circulated sign-up sheets for the commitment to attend the Mass, as if it were any other “combatant march.” Undoubtedly, the government refuses to allow the Plaza, its sacred space of the Revolution, to fill spontaneously with tens of thousands of Cubans from a cause other than the Revolution itself; thus, it is necessary to clarify that — with or without Pope — the site will be filled only by the call of the officiating historicals** of the cult.

In times past, believers were constantly harassed and disenfranchised. In the Old Havana neighborhood of my childhood and adolescence, a handful of young people and children attended the catechism classes at María Auxiliadora Church, and for that reason were nicknamed “the blessed” and were often teased by the children of “Communist” families. This government has never made a public apology for the prolonged and unjustified discrimination of the religious of any denomination; instead, it now presents itself as a champion of religious freedom, as was recently cynically declared by the Cuban Foreign Minister at a press conference.

But the most astonishing part of this whole picture is the quiet complacency of the religious authorities. A few days ago, the archdiocese reacted violently to what they took as the desecration of a temple, and denounced as “illegal” the occupation of the Church of La Caridad by thirteen dissidents with a list of demands they wanted to deliver to the Pope. The severity of the offense was greater because — the church itself said — it was using a space of worship for political issues, which is foreign to the spirit and the role of the Church. So offensive was the intrusion of these people with their demands, that Cardinal Jaime Ortega himself asked the authorities to expel these new Pharisees from the Temple of God.

However, these days it has become obvious that the only politics worthy of the Catholic sacred spaces are those of the Government, as evidenced by the media manipulation, the official calls to mass, and the entire proceedings around the visit of Benedict XVI on the part of the ruling elite. Some Cubans have waited in vain for a note of protest from the Archbishop at such a politicization of what is supposed to be a pastoral visit to reaffirm faith in God, and which, by the work and the grace of the Castro-Catholic romance, has turned out to be — at least in appearance — another march in support to the government.

A great deal of space has already been lost to the Catholic faith in Cuba. We are, in reality, a people more superstitious than religious, more practical than devout, more hedonistic than sacrificing. The ordinary Cuban generally partakes equally of any saint or creed that is useful in the short term, and so among us the utilitarian always exceeds belief in the sacred, so much so that here the sacred often has a certain comic flavor. But, surely, when Benedict XVI lifts off from Cuban soil and returns to the peace and meditation of his Vatican, he will leave behind a people even less Catholic than his predecessor, John Paul II, left behind 14 years ago.

This post is translated from Diario de Cuba.

27 March 2012

Translator’s notes:
*Miriam is using the pre-Revolution name for what is now called “The Plaza of the Revolution.” The square, the buildings and the monuments there were all built before Castro came to power, with the exception, of course, of the cast iron sculptures on two facades, one of Che’s face and one that of Camilo Cienfuegos.
**The survivors of the original Revolutionary Army and the earliest leadership of Fidel Castro’s government are commonly referred to, by themselves and others in Cuba, as “the historicals.”

#PapaCuba To Your Holiness Benedict XVI / Laritza Diversent

Your Holiness Benedict XVI:

I did not intend to write about your visit, but your arrival in Cuba is an event that marks the history of this nation. Not only because the successor of Peter accompanies us on the pilgrimage of the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, patroness of Cuba. But for the wave of repression that has preceded your arrival and that accompanies it.

Thank you for asking God, “To guide the destinies of this beloved nation through the paths of justice, peace, freedom and reconciliation.” The same prayer of so many Cubans who suffer and dream of a free Cuba, without ideology.

Like you, Your Holiness, I think I, “Cannot continue any longer in the same cultural and moral direction that has caused the tragic situation so many are experiencing.” I endorse your words and join you, only in mind and thought, in your pilgrimage to the shrine of the Mother of God.

Like many of my brothers and sisters, the government that has received so much acclaim has blocked our way. I would like to feel myself blessed by your arrival, but it is not the case. Thousands of arrests, cleansing the streets of indigents, police operations, house arrests, telephones cut off, only because of your visit to Cuba.

In my mind I repeat your prayers for the “underprivileged, the marginalized, and those suffering in body and spirit.” I also ask, “for the intercession of Our Lady Of Charity of Cobre, grant us all a future filled with hope, solidarity and harmony,” for our land.

In my prayers to God, I ask Him to return pride to our people and to strengthen our love for the motherland, for our children, our brothers and sisters, that we of the resistance may have sufficient strength to withstand the fear and repression, and to strengthen our voices in favor of Freedom.

Despite our faith, our reality is different: arrest and silence, repression and fear, simple hypocrisy; and your arrival, Your Holiness has come to remind us of it.

March 27 2012

We Ask of the Pope / El Ciro – Ciro Javier Díaz Penedo

Benedict XVI should speak at the morning Mass of the arrests of citizens in Cuba, of the beating received yesterday by a person who, during his Mass, of the abuses the Cuban government inflicts on its population, and if he does not he is, in some way, an accomplice to this tyranny, he would be visiting a country where people in power once proscribed his religion and ordered the murder of its priests and the faithful.

These are the same people with whom the Pope is conversing fraternally now. I am not saying not to do it, diplomacy has its uses, but they should be in the service of goodness and justice, and as he meets with these assassins he should at least do the same with those of us who struggle against them in a peaceful manner.

The Pope should meet with good Cubans such as Oswaldo Payá, Dagoberto Valdez or Yoani Sanchez. None of these citizens have acted in a violent way against the Cuban authorities who, for their part, have done so against them, these people who confront the Communist, totalitarian and tyrannical regime in Cuba simply by raising their voices.

27 March 2012

More Arrests and Disappearances / El Ciro – Ciro Javier Díaz Penedo

Williams, bass player for Porno para Ricardo has disappeared. He left at 9 am from home heading to the clinic and has not returned although he has had more than enough time to do so. This, coupled with the disappearance of this morning Ismael Diego and the arrest yesterday of Danilo Maldonado (El Sexto) makes me think that both have been kidnapped. The media must let the Pope know that his visit to Cuba is having these kinds of consequences and the least we can do is to refer publicly to this fact.

I ask people who read this article to collaborate however they can to insist that Pope should speak publicly at Mass tomorrow of the abuses being committed by the regime against Cuban citizens. Almost all of our phones have been disrupted and many of us, for days now, are being threatened and in some cases taken into custody without excuse. His Holiness Benedict XVI should condemn the arbitrary and unjust actions that the government of Cuba is perpetrating against its citizens on the occasion of his visit to Havana.

Anyone, who can send me an email from someone with influence in newspapers, radio or television please send it to me at cirojdiaz@gmail.com. Or ask them to publish what is happening in Cuba at this time.

Thanks

27 March 2012

Arrests and Disappearances / El Ciro – Ciro Javier Díaz Penedo

Last night I received a call from a neighbor informing me that people had seen Danilo Maldonado (El Sexto) in a police car.

Also today, early in the morning, Ismael de Diego left his house to go the corner and disappeared; at home his girlfriend was waiting for him for breakfast and he never returned.

All our phones are blocked.

Down with Communism, down with Raul.

27 March 2012

Woiti, Throw Me A Rope! / Voices Magazine / Chicho

ON THE EVE of the arrival of John Paul II on the Island, almost fifteen years ago, an open letter circulated from “a certain Chicho.” As it was carefully conserved, we reproduce it here.

Open Letter to Karol Wojtyla, Pope John Paul II

The hardest thing for me is to address this letter. I don’t want to start with “Excellency” or “Your Holiness,” or put your first and last name, or your title of Pope. Since I don’t know how to do it, I apologize and will do it the Cuban way. First I have to speak to you in the familiar first person — with “tu” instead of “usted” — and second I’m going to familiarize your name. They told me in Poland they call you Tio Loleck, Uncle Loleck, but that doesn’t work here. For example, Ernesto Guevara we nicknamed “el Che,” Mikhael Gorbachov we called “el Gorbi.” and the Virgin of Charity herself, whom you will crown in Santiago de Cuba, between the threatening swords that point at the sky in Antonio Maceo Plaza, Her, we call her “Cachita.”

And so, meaning no offense, I name you “Woiti,” with affection.

The other thing I have to clarify for you is that people like me, who are around forty, we who were born in the Revolution, we have little occasion for religious faith; many of us have never been baptized because our parents wanted to join the Party, because that was where it always went best, but the Heart of Jesus always remained behind the wardrobe door, or there was a caracol under the bed, always, after that infallible “materialist cosmovision of the world” that they inculcated us with, we were left with a little doubt, it was our way to a little faith.

One day they held a Congress and religion was no longer merely “the opiate of the people” and you could be a militant Communist and a believer. Of course, that did nothing for those religious coming into the Party, but for those who were already in it, they could take off their atheist masks. With this end of the ideologies, many people were left with nothing to hold onto and they were thrown to their fate on this Island, and we had the joke that the most important thing is to have FE (faith), and the two letters of that word stood for Family in the Exterior.

ON THE EVE of the arrival of John Paul II on the Island, almost fifteen years ago, an open letter circulated from “a certain Chicho.” As it was carefully conserved, we reproduce it here.

Woiti, you have seen hunger worse than ours in other places in the world, you have known totalitarian repression worst than ours, religious persecution, massive exiles, lack of freedom, imprisonment, torture, lack of hope, crisis of values and many more problems, at levels so high that it might seem to a Rwandan, an Iraqi, a Guatemalan, or a North Korean that this is paradise; but these are our own and almost nothing we can do from within can relieve them. Fortunately you don’t represent a military power. As far as I know, the Vatican has never paid spies, nor engaged in terrorist, nor imposed a blockade, nor dropped bombs or bacteria on any place in the world.

So can I ask you to throw us a rope, and because you talk with Him, because he He receives you and hears you. Tell Him, that his flock does not want to continue to suffer, that we want to regain our individual dignity which we had to give in exchange for a national dignity that can only be seen for outside, in those solidarity clubs and in the headlines of our newspapers.

Hopefully we will not remember your visit only for the roads they fixed for your to pass along them, or because, perhaps, thanks to you, we will get to celebrate Christmas in a normal way again. Hopefully you will open a space with your presence. Hopefully He will hear you. Hopefully in your mouth our prayer is made audible.

Throw me a rope, Woiti!

This article is on page 53 of the Cuban independent magazine Voices 14, published 23 March 2012, in Havana, Cuba.

Deported from Camaguey to Havana / Katia Sonia Martín Véliz

2503201222725032012229This Saturday my husband, Ricard Medina, and I prepared to journey to Camagey with the objective to then proceed to Santiago de Cuba where we wanted to participate in the Mass that His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI would offer in the Plaza of Antonio Maceo. We left on 2 pm bus that arrived after 11:00 pm in Camagey. We went to the house of Irel Gomez Moreira, delegate of the Cuban Independent Democratic Party, who lives in Palomino Street at No 621, as we had a work plan to found a delegation of young members of our organization in that area.

When we arrived we found a little suspicious that a Lada made car was coming very quietly in front of us in those very desolate streets, itwas apparently a couple. The next day, or Sunday, we got up very early to start all the agreements and were leaving the house at 6:20 am when a man dressed in civilian clothes and in quite a rush intercepts us on the road to ask for our identification. On the corner the same Lada car was waiting, with the same woman and man; we demanded they show us their IDs, they wanted us to get into the Lada but we refused because if they were going to arrest us let them take us in a patrol car along with Irel.

They took is to the State Security (G-2) Operations Center. It was so early we noticed that the guards were just getting up. They took us into a room in the structure that I imagined was used for people arriving in the cells. An official called me and in a small room began to inspect me and let me alone with the toilet and clothes. A lieutenant came in to search my body. They took me inside where the cells were, and in an office a woman no more than 25 ordered me to take off all my clothes, which I refused, she told me that if my bra has underwires she had to remove them because I couldn’t go in the cell with the wires because if I killed myself it was her responsibility and she would have to face the military prosecutors.

I took off my bra under my blouse and she tried to break the wires and I told her to give it back, it belongs to me but I wasn’t going to break it. The young woman did as I said and didn’t insist, and then she called “control” as they call the jailer, and he took me to cell 3 where there was a woman on the edge of madness because she’d been there more than 12 days for an economic crime and had high blood pressure. Then she saw me and we started we to talk and I asked her why she was there and she desperately started to tell me everything.

Within minutes they took me out of the cell, a guard called me by the number 96 to which I didn’t answer, and he told me, upset, that I was deaf, he was calling me, and I told him I had a name and that I didn’t answer to numbers for anyone and not to bother me calling me again. He took me out and a major named Fernando, according to him, showed me Ricardo’s cell phone that has various Twitter text messages from some friends informing us hat there was repression around the Pope’s visit and he said they were inciting us to go to the mass and shout “freedom,” and I started to laugh and said, look, search the Internet, these Tweets are from our friends, stop being so scared, because even the word “freedom” upsets them, this is a right that is born in all human beings and in you too and they took it from you, too, and the guy slapped the table and said look, read this order of detention and sign it.

When I read it, it said that we were arrested for disturbing the peace, of course I refused to sign it and he, greatly annoyed, ordered them to take me back to the cell.

An hour or so went by — in a walled cell it’s impossible to calculate the time and I couldn’t see a single ray of light — a guard came by, the same one that checked me in, to bring me a mattress, I said you brought me here without a mattress, without food, without water, I’ll let you watch me and I went to bed with my back to the door as if I didn’t care at all about a wooden bed in the corner.

After a while they brought a doctor who asked if I suffered from anything, I just answered that yes, I was allergic to her Revolution and to olive-green. She just looked at me, took the blood pressure who was there and left with her very quickly.

In a few minutes they came back and took me to an office where I waited for the Chief of the Jail who told me I had to answer a series of questions that Major Fernando would pose and then everything would be resolved and they would take me and my husband to Havana.

They left because there were more guards in the office where they took me and one asked me what we were doing in Camaguey and what did the Cuban Independent and Democratic party do, from where we knew Irel. I told him I was in Camaguey because as a Cuban I could go wherever I wanted in Cuba, that I knew Irel just like a knew a ton of people in Camaguey and that the party I belonged to wanted to have free elections and that there i a multi-party system that respects Human Rights and doesn’t put women in dungeons for the way they think and express themselves.

The man, upset now, asked when I was last detained, I said last Sunday, and he said this makes you feel really strong, right? And asked how much schooling I had, I told him Technical School, I graduated in Clinical Biology but I couldn’t continue my schooling because — according to the regime — I wasn’t “reliable.” He opened to door and told the guard to take me back to the cell. Then he immediately turned to me to sign a report about what, according to him, we said, a report I refused to sign and so I put I REFUSE, and they quickly got me out of there because according to them there was no time, they returned my possessions, searched us minutely, and took Ricardo and me in big Lada that said G-2, leaving us at the National Astro bus station.

I asked them for money for the tickets, they delayed the bus for 45 minutes, all the people on the lookout and the official escorted us the entire trip, carefully watching our every step. Arriving in Havana at a stop near our house, in Manglar, we got off unexpectedly leaving the man who was guarding us unable to react.

Thanks be to God we are home and thanks to all my friends for your concern and your Tweets.

March 26 2012

Hunger Strike’ Day 21. Blog 2. / Jeovany Jimenez Vega

Today it has been three weeks since the beginning of my hunger strike. The distinctive sign these days has been the absolute silence maintained by the Cuban government authorities and by the officials of the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP). Absolutely no one, of any government institution or of MINSAP, has made any public pronouncement nor have they approached me to date, or concerned themselves about my case, nor about the hunger strike, nor even, humanely, asked about they state of my health.

None of this surprises me at all, in fact I did not expect some other conduct from institutions and officials who ignored us for five years because, in fact, it was precisely that silence and institutional indolence which brought me here. More than 70 documents submitted in person at the headquarters of the central agencies of government policies and, left without answers one after another for five years, prove it. All this explains why I finally opted for the hunger strike as a last resort to vindicate our usurped rights.

Every day, all week, I have received calls from radio stations in several countries who continue to be interested in the course of the strike and who spread the truth about this case. On the evening of Saturday 24 received a visit from Emiliano Bos, Italian journalist accredited to Havana on the occasion of the visit of Pope Benedict XVI, to whom I gave an interview for the Swiss station RSI, which is heard in much of Europe.

On Friday, March 23, at 5:00 pm, I was left empty-handed by ARTV News, the Educational Channel, waiting in vain for the transmission of the interview I granted to the provincial channel on Monday March 19 which they assured me would be transmitted. This is evidence that censorship always prevails, they do not have the courage to publish a truth like this and it was all a trick to be used at their own time of decontextualizing everything, they don’t know how to do anything else.

Although my health is stable, and I try to sleep well and stay hydrated by drinking water frequently and rehydration salts, I am beginning to feel more and more the rigor of fasting and the fatigue accumulated after three weeks. I am already feeling a growing, significant and continuous decline and have already lost, until now, about 24 pounds (I started on March 5th at 154 pounds).

I announced yesterday by Tweeter and affirm here that, given the silence maintained by the Minister, on Tuesday March 27 at 9:30 am I will present myself at the headquarters of the Ministry of Public Health to personally solicit a response. I also affirm my intention to attend, along with Catholic parishioners from Guanajay, the Mass that Pope Benedict XVI will officiate at in Revolution Square on Wednesday 28 March.

Every day that the Cuban authorities and the Ministry of Health decided to continue this fictive silence, it will only sink them more and more in the mud. When they summon up the courage to break the silence only two alternatives will be presented to them: either recognize with humility that everything was a mistake from the beginning and proceed to allow us to practice our profession and reinstate me in my Internal Medicine Residency — something I recognize is remote but it would be possible even for them, the only successful and intelligent outcome –or decide to persist in that untenable lie planted since 2006.

In the second case, it would be prudent for them to count on one more death on their record and to prepare with great care the speech to explain to the world how this young communist militant from 2006, who did nothing other than study medicine and exercise it with love, with no criminal record — nor even prior administrative sanctions — who then wanted to take on one of the most difficult specialties, so comprehensive, which he was not allowed to, ended up as this execrable being they have drawn in their desperate attempt to justify a crime. Although the human suffering they generate doesn’t matter to them, because after all… what’s one more stripe on the skin of a tiger?

(*) Additional information via my cellphone +5358200251, land line 362086 (Artemisa) or through Alfredo Felipe Valdés, spokesperson in the case, exiled in Málaga, España, (Cellphone: 627222638). I will keep reporting through Twitter (DrJVega).

March 26 2012

 

DOWN WITH COMMUNISM, AS HE ASKED THE POPE / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

If someone can identify the protester, please give his name now. This Cuban person, for a simple shout, is going to suffer tortures and a sentence that could be 10 years or more.


Man mocks State Security at the Pope’s Mass and shouts “Down With Communism” by Globovision (Apologies for the 15 second ad!)

Translator’s note: The video is self-explanatory without subtitles. The person being led away and beaten over the head with a rolled up stretcher shouted “Down with Communism” at the Pope’s Mass in Santiago de Cuba.

March 27 2012

Updates on Repression Relating to Pope Benedict’s Visit from Pieces of the Island / Translating Cuba

Keep on eye on the blog Pieces of the Island, for up-to-minute reports of repression associated with Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Cuba.

Here are some “highlights” since the last report re-posted here.

Benedict XVI Will Arrive to “a Nation in which Communism Has Left Behind Devastating Destruction”

Former political prisoner of conscience Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, national coordinator of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) reports:

“I’d tell the Pope not to forget during his visit to our country that he is visiting a nation in which communism, Marxist-Leninism, has left behind devastating destruction.  That he pronounce himself because of this and that, in his homilies, he remember that we Cubans live without freedom, without rights, and that repression against the people is worse every time.  I also would remind him that many Cubans will not be able to assist his Mass because the political police already has them detained in inhumane conditions in police units, or they are surrounded in their homes.  A large number of these Cubans are devout Catholics and the dictatorship is violating their rights.  We wish that Pope Benedict XVI will have this present during his stay in Cuba”.

Jose Daniel Ferrer Narrates Increase of Repression in Eastern Cuban Hours Before Papal Visit

With less than 24 hours until Pope Benedict’s visit to Cuba, the arrests of Ladies in White and other dissidents in Cuba have dramatically increased, according to the former political prisoner of conscience Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, coordinator of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU).  “These arrests are multiplying as we come closer to the first mass which Pope Benedict XVI will offer in Santiago de Cuba“, said the activist, referring to the mass on Monday, March 26th and 5:30 PM.

Ferrer cited that in the East, up to the moment (the afternoon of Sunday, March 25th), there have been “60 arrests for political reasons, out which 19 are Ladies in White“.  He added that there are more cases of arrests but that he is still confirming the details.

26 March 2012