Cuban Diary XIX: What the UN Rapporteur Should See / Angel Santiesteban

If the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva saw through a crack the horrors that occur in Cuban prisons, surely it would do two things:

1 – Expel Cuba from the United Nations.

2 – Knowing the alleged violations that are occurring in the prison of Guantanamo Bay, according to accusations from the Castro government, they could send the directors who lead the prisons in Cuba — true concentration camps — to pass a course at Guantanamo, in order to improve their behavior.

The dictatorship, always obsessed with attacking the United States, transmits TV images denigrating what is allegedly happening in Guantanamo Bay.

It’s not my job to defend it or make value judgments about it, this is the role of the American people; my obligation as a Cuban and intellectual is to denounce the terrible tortures that take place in the prison where I have been held and of which I am not a witness.

At present, in the cell, there is a young man with his mouth sewn shut with wire. Today he passed through the prison before the frightened looks from the other inmates.

There are daily fights between prisoners and between them and the guards. I guess this is common in any prison in the world but I am not a specialist to confirm that. But here, when the guards confront a prisoner, the ratio is ten to one, along with their batons and pepper sprays.

The food they serve is a tiny amount and badly prepared. It consists of a few grams o rice, a boiled egg, and a colorless and odorless but always disgusting soup.

The barracks are populated by prisoners who have completed their sentences, and who, because of bureaucratic problems, remained locked up without any consideration. The constant beatings and dungeons are increasing their sentences along with the blackmail to not demand their “rights.”

Silence is the only ally of the Cuban prisoner; talking could lead to a new condemnatory charge in the most arbitrary of decisions.

They wait and resign themselves. They have no alternatives.

That is the stark reality of the Cuban prisoner, who lives without guarantees of his rights or the chance to make demands. Even without reviewing the records of those processed in light of international guarantees applied to the condemned, I can say without any fear of being mistaken that if that were to happen half of the prison population would be freed.

A court that has before it a young man without hope, who, unfortunately, is a part of the children nobody wanted, who has left school and has no place to be nor can he be offered a reliable life project that invites him to get on track that isn’t emigration, the place he can best be held is in jail.

A great part of Cuban youth that has not found a way to go into exile is in prison; and I say this with total confidence, they are following there a criminal course for their future as thugs.

Hopefully the Rapporteur who is sent to Cuba will be able to meet with the people who so greatly suffer the need for him.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats
Prison 1580
May 2013

18 May 2013

PEN Writers in Prison Ask for a Review of Angel Santiesteban’s Trial / Angel Santiesteban

The German PEN Center for Writers in Prison has pronounced its satisfaction with the release of Calixto Martinez Arias but is now asking for a review of the trials of Jose Antonio Torres, journalist, and of writer and blogger Angel Santiesteban Prats. We call on the authorities to provide legal guarantees that have not been respected and this is why the sentences are not related to the crimes they are accuse us. We also call for the evidence to be proceedings be made public.

Posted on 13 April 2013 by Writers in Prison

Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias

[The following is in English in the original]

The Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of PEN International welcomes the 9 April 2013 release of the independent journalist Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias, who had been detained without charge since September 2012. However, PEN notes that two other writers remain imprisoned in the country – state journalist José Antonio Torres and author and blogger Ángel Santiesteban Prats – and continues to call on the authorities to provide assurances that their sentences are not related to their reporting, and to make public details of their trials.

Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias, journalist for the independent news agency Hablemos Press, was released from prison on 9 April 2013, after being detained without charge for almost seven months. Arrested on 16 September 2012 after covering a cholera outbreak which the Cuban authorities had reportedly been trying to downplay, he faced a sentence of up to three years in prison for ‘disrespect’ towards the head of state under Article 144 of the Cuban Criminal Code. The charges were never officially confirmed, his lawyer was not allowed access to his case file and he was never put on trial.

Martínez’ release eventually came amid growing pressure from Cuban civil society and international organisations and the day after he began his third hunger strike. He had called off his previous hunger strike on 28 March after the authorities indicated that he would be moved from Combinado del Este prison to Valle Grande prison and subsequently released. However, although Martínez was transferred he was not freed. As a result, he resumed his hunger strike on 8 April. A number of his colleagues and fellow dissidents joined the hunger strike, including Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez, director of Hablemos Press, which had launched a campaign on social media to push for Martínez’ release.

According to colleagues at Hablemos Press, Martínez has lost two teeth and has cuts on his lips and tongue. Previous reports indicate that he suffered ill treatment in prison, including assault, a ban on using the telephone, being placed in solitary confinement and denied medical attention.

Two other writers remain in Cuban prisons: José Antonio Torres, former correspondent for the government newspaper Granma, and Ángel Santiesteban Prats, award-winning writer and author of the blog ‘The Children Who Nobody Loved’ (‘Los Hijos que Nadie Quiso’). Little is known about the trial of either writer.

Torres, who has been detained since February 2011, is serving a 14-year prison sentence for alleged espionage. His arrest followed the publication of articles in 2010 detailing the mismanagement of an aqueduct project and the installation of fibre-optic cable between Venezuela and Cuba, in which Vice President Ramiro Valdés was named as responsible for supervising both projects. Torres was convicted in mid-June 2012 following a closed trial. Cuba’s state-run media has made only a few brief references to Torres’ case and little is known about the espionage charge, although there are rumours that he may have offered or given confidential information to the US diplomatic mission in Havana.

Santiesteban was imprisoned on 28 February 2013 after being sentenced to five years in prison for alleged assault and trespassing in a case involving his ex-wife. The writer maintains that the charges are fabricated and politically motivated, retribution for his blog which is critical of the Cuban situation and government. He also claims that he was informed of what the outcome of the trial would be on 8 November 2012, one month before the sentencing took place. Details of the case against Santiesteban have not been made public in state media, but according to the appeal lodged by his lawyer there were a number of serious irregularities in the trial and sentencing.

PEN holds no position on Santiesteban’s guilt or innocence. However, it is concerned that his trial appears to have fallen short of international human rights standards.

A post on Santiesteban’s blog dated 9 April 2013 said that the writer had taken from La Lima prison to an unknown destination, and suggested that the reason for his removal was that the ‘Human Rights Commission’ (possibly the Comisión Cubana de Derechos Humanos) had been due to visit the prison that day. Santiesteban had previously reported in a statement published on his blog on 5 April that he had been told that he would be taken to the Salvador Allende military hospital for a check-up in relation to suspected skin cancer. He said that he would refuse to go as it was a military hospital.

For further details on Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias, José Antonio Torres and Ángel Santiesteban Prats, see previous alert.

Please send appeals:

Welcoming the release of Hablemos Press journalist Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias on 9 April 2013;

Noting, however, that two other writers remain in prison in Cuba, former Granma correspondent José Antonio Torres and writer and blogger Ángel Santiesteban Prats, and that their trials apparently failed to meet international human rights standards for fair trials, outlined in Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;

Calling on the Cuban authorities to provide assurances that Torres’ and Santiesteban’s sentences are not related to their reporting, and to make public details of their trials;

Urging the Cuban authorities to remove unlawful restrictions on freedom of expression, association and assembly in Cuba.

Appeals to:

Head of State and Government

Raúl Castro Ruz
Presidente de la República de Cuba
La Habana, Cuba
Fax: +41 22 758 9431 (Cuba office in Geneva);
+1 212 779 1697 (via Cuban Mission to UN)
Email: cuba@un.int (c/o Cuban Mission to UN)
Salutation: Your Excellency
Attorney General

Dr. Darío Delgado Cura
Fiscal General de la República
Fiscalía General de la República
Amistad 552, e/Monte y Estrella, Centro Habana, La Habana, Cuba
Salutation: Dear Attorney General
Interior Minister

General Abelardo Coloma Ibarra
Ministro del Interior y Prisiones
Ministerio del Interior, Plaza de la Revolución, La Habana, Cuba
Fax: +1 212 779 1697 (via Cuban Mission to UN)
Email: correominint@mn.mn.co.cu
Salutation: Your Excellency

Please send also appeals to diplomatic representatives of Cuba in your country.

***Please send appeals immediately. Check with the WiPC if sending appeals after 11 June 2013***

Published by PEN Zentrum Deuschtland

19 April 2013

The United Nations Human Rights Council and its Great Challenge With Cuba / Angel Santiesteban

Tomorrow, May 1, the United Nations Human Rights Council will meet in Geneva, where Cuba will present a report with notes on its prison policy.

“Dressing up” for the occasion, for the first time in nine years the Castro regime opened its jails to the national and international press accredited in Cuba. It is public knowledge that the infamous stance adopted by these visitors facing the reality of the Cuban prison system.

In a previous statement we urged journalists to reconsider and not continue to be complicit in the crimes committed in the Castro concentration camps. But silence prevailed as expected.

Those who were not silent were the prisoners who by different means told the world the cruel reality that the dictatorship makes happen. All their complaints are on the Internet. Here we provide a link where you can listen to two testimonies of the many who have appeared just in the last few days.

Angel Santiesteban-Prats wrote an open letter to the Human Rights Council which urges them to know and appreciate the real testimonies of those who suffer violations of their most basic rights, countless humiliations and deprivation in these prisons. The letter has been widely reported by the international media and numerous blogs over several days.

On the strength of his claim, we publish the letter again, this time in English, as submitted to the Council.

We believe it is most opportune to recall the list of political prisoners who populate the concentration camps and who both the Castro regime, and its allies in the world, refuse to admit the existence of.

We hope that neither Angel Santiesteban’s Letter nor the list of political prisoners are ignored tomorrow at the meeting of the Council, and that its members show the world that they are fulfilling their mission to ensure the defense of Human Rights without distinction.

For all Cuban prisoners we ask for justice and respect for their rights. And for the political prisoners in particular, justice, respect for their rights and freedom.

Finally we urge everyone to work together tirelessly disseminating the list of political prisoners — sadly always provisional — so that their names are not forgotten and the world’s eyes are finally opened to the terrible reality that Cubans have been suffering for 54 years.

Thank you for your attention,

The Editorial Team

Open Letter to the United Nations Human Rights Council

Honourable Sirs,

I turn to you from the deep despair produced by my imprisonment for reasons of consciousness in one of the Castro brothers’ horrific prisons. In your hand is the opportunity to stop the agony for so many inmates who survive the cruelest famines and tortures, both physical and psychological.

In order to hide the truth, on April 9, just before the international journalists arrived, I was transferred by the back door from the prison La Lima, where I was confined, to another prison, the 1580, wherein all sorts of outrages and humiliations, worthy of Nazi concentration camps, are committed against the inmates.  Inmates are crammed in small spaces; there is a lack of food and  proper sanitation, the violence is constant, the most basic rights of the prisoners and their families are violated.  These sad conditions add up to make this prison a true concentration camp.

In recent months there have been two large fires in the prison, the causes of which have yet to be explained. Multiple suicides also accompany daily life in this prison.

Upon my arrival I started a hunger strike; I was put in solitary confinement with no light, no water, no clothes or toiletries. After several days I was violated by several guards, some of them held me by my limbs while another pressed my nostrils until I opened my mouth to breathe and a stinking soup was introduced into, which choked me; and thus again and again I was force fed this soup until I was on the floor of the cell completely covered in food, which I vomited uncontrollably.

I want to denounce Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Quintana, head of the Provincial Penitentiary Administration of Havana who is directly responsible for what I have told above.

I also want to clarify that my situation is not the worst. I wish that you could listen directly to the abused inmates in order they could explain for themselves the hell in which they live. I fear not being credible enough to expose the horror and the wickedness we suffer daily.

The Cuban government must understand once and for all that it is impossible to maintain their power at the expense of people’s pain.

We, who are suffering these terrible circumstances, strongly urge you to value this first-hand testimony, which I give under full oath; asking God to put His holy hands on this country forgotten by the international community, and that the testimonies of the prisoners such as myself can be heard. We ask that Cuba signs the UN covenants and accepts the statements of Human Rights declarations, and if it does not do so, that appropriate measures should be taken to expel the existing Cuban government from the concert of free nations.

We are a devastated country that, despite these fifty-four years of slavery, still dreams of becoming a prosperous and free nation. We need help and support, we need that this horror, the one my fellow inmates and I have and continue to suffer, be halted.

I beg you to accept my gratitude in advance.

Yours faithfully,

Angel Santiesteban
Prisión 1580.

Partial list of those sanctioned and processed for political reasons drawn up on the basis of what the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation published this year, more cases have been added since then. There may be more cases we do not know:

1- Abreu Bonora, M.arcelino
2- Alcalá Aramboru, Harold
3- Alonso Hernández, Claro Fernando
4- Alonso Parada, Lázaro
5- Álvarez Pedrozo, Pedro de la Caridad
6- Álvarez Puig, Yordanis
7- Arce Romero, Lewis
8- Arcia Céspedes, Pavel
9- Arzuaga Peña, Ariel Eugenio
10- Ávila Sierra, Lázaro
11- Borges Pérez, Ernesto
12- Brachaw Alexander, Dolyn
13- Bravo López, Joel
14- Cano Díaz Joel
15- Caraballo Betancourt, Madeline Lázara
16- Castillo González, Reinaldo
17- Cervantes García Jorge
18- Cerezo Sirut Leandro
19-Cobas Sendó, Roelvis
20- Cornel de la Rosa, Raúl Manuel
21- Corrales Jiménez, Nayibis de la Caridad
22- De Miranda Rubo, Karel
23- Delgado Aramburo, Maikel
24- Díaz Bouzá, Miguel
25- Díaz Ortíz, José Ángel
26- Farret Delgado, Yander
27- Frenández Benitez, Luis Enrique
28- Figuerola Miranda, Enrique
29- Forbes Lamorú, Alain
30- Frometa Allen, Eider
31- Frometa Lobaina, Ángel
32- Garro Alfonso, Sonia
33- González Castillo, Eliso
34- González Estrada, Alexander
35- González Moreno, Ulises
36- González Pozo, Eldris
37- Gross, Allan Philip
38- Guía Piloto, Yosiel
39- Henry Grillo, Ramón
40- Hermán Aguilera, José David
41- Hernández Ruiz Ricardo
42- Labrador Díaz, Luis Enrique
43- Ledea Pérez, Wilmer
44- Lescay Veloz, Rider
45- Lima Cruz, marcos Maikel
46- López de Moya, Danny
47- Lozada Igarza, Luis Enrique
48- Martín Calderín, Carlos Rafael
49- Martín Calderín, Miraida
50- Matos Montes de Oca, Rafael
51- Muñoz González, Ramón Alejandro
52- Mustelier Galán, Bismark
53- Naranjo Bonne, Omar
54- Núñez Pascual, Adriana
55- Osoria Claro, Francisco
56- Padrón Quintero, Santiago
57- Parada Ramírez, Raúl
58- Peña Ramírez Jesús Manuel
59- Pérez Bocourt, Elias
60- Pérez Pérez, Danny
61- Pérez Puentes, Jorge Luis
62- Piloto Barceló, David
63- Planas Robert, Emilio
64- Pradera Váldez, Máximo
65- Puig Rodríguez, Yelkis
66- Quvedo Valladares, Eliosbel
67- Real Suárez, Humberto Eladio
68- Reyes Rodríguez, Francisco
69- Ribeau Noa, Arcelio
70- Rivera Guerra, Niorvis
71- Riveri Gascón, Ernesto Roberto
72- Rodríguez Acosta, Osvaldo
73- Rodrígez Castillo, Osvaldo
74- Rodríguez Jiménez, Boris
75- Romero Hurtado, Lázaro
76- Salmerón Mendoza, Erick
77- Sánchez Pérez, César Andrés
78- Santiesteban Prats, Ángel Lázaro
79- Santovenia Fernández, Daniel Candelario
80- Sarraf Trujillo, Rolando
81- Sosa Fortuny, Armando
82- Surís de la Torre, Ihosvani
83- Tavío López, Rogelio
84- Terrero Carrión, Grerardo
85- Thomas González, Yoanny
86- Torres, Luis Antonio
87- Torres Mártínez, Yoan
88- Tudela Iríbar, Rolando
89- Triana González, Orlando
90- Vargas Martín, Alexei
91- Vargas Martín, Diango
92- Vargas Martín, Vianco
93- Vázquez Osorio, Juan Carlos

Political prisoners who continue to serve their sentences on parole:

1- Argüelles Morán, Pedro
2- Biscet González, Oscar Elías
3- Díaz Fleitas, Eduardo
4- Espinosa Chepe, Oscar Manuel
5- Ferrer García, José Daniel
6- Gónzalez Marrero, Disodado
7- Hérnandez Carrillo, Iván
8- Linares García, Librado
9- López Pérez, Abel
10- Maseda Gutiérrrez, Héctor
11- Moya Acosta, Ángel Juan
12- Navarro Rodríguez, Felix
13- Olivera Castillo, Jorge
14- Palacios Ruiz Héctor
15- Ramos Lauzurique Arnaldo
16- Roque Caballero, Martha Beatriz

30 April 2013

Prison Diary XVI. May Day in Prison 1580 / Angel Santiesteban

 What Else the Commission Didn’t See of Cuban Injustice

The sun rising over Prison 1580 was a violent awakening of the “re-educators” offensive because the inmates cannot stay in their beds and not watch TV to see “the march of the valiant people.”

They entered the barracks shouting insults and dirty words, threatening that they would take the names of those who were not in front of the television and later they would be disciplined.

For committing that “indiscipline” the entire barracks was denied a visit and the conjugal pavilion. In the end most of the prisoners were punished and remained staring the economic waste suffered by the country; and they came to the conclusion that after being awakened, offended and punished, the “re-educators” went to their office where there wasn’t a television. They could hear their voices and their laughter, surely mocking their slaves.

And I say slaves because that same May 1st Cuba declared to the Human Rights Commission in Geneva and the TV news relayed the speech of Chancellor Bruno Rodríguez’s speech and the prisoner enjoyed his humorous lies. Most of them laughed as if they were being tickled.

When he said that Cuban prisoners were paid a salary equal what is paid in civilian life, they laughed and cursed him; the majority of prisoners do not earn a salary, and the few who earn something, after working a month, including every Saturday and some Sundays more than 8 hours a day and with the worse food, on payday receive 103 pesos, that is some 4 CUC, which isn’t enough to buy two jars of oil or five lousy soaps.

In the same speech the Chancellor swore that there is no drug trafficking in Cuba. And in my barracks more than half the population, around forty, are drug users and there are exactly seventeen convicted to drug trafficking.

Hopefully the Commission will investigate in-depth all the constant lies of the Cuban government. They have been hiding these truths for many years that are so painful, especially for their suffering victims who have nothing to do, from the inside of hell, with how these officials lie to international public opinion, as in this case to the United Nations.

When the Chancellor assured that in Cuba there is no torture, the prisoners — as if he could see them — stood in front of the TV and showed their scars, their missing teeth, the lost vision in their eyes from beatings, fractured nasal septums and arms and broken fingers… and all the signs of humiliation and abuse printed on their bodies, all of which suffered under a legal neglect.

When a prisoner is abused and there are injuries, they hide them in the punishment cells so that the rest of the prison doesn’t see it, and they stay there until the swelling and bruising disappear.

Then the prisoner always receives the same threat: if he informs the international press or tells his family what happened, he will be sent to distance province far from home, so then his family will have to travel several days and spend a lot of money to visit him.

This is the life of a Cuban prisoner and nothing distinguishes it from that the official propaganda says happens on Guantanamo Base with all the abuses committed there, because I repeat, in my case as in so many we are forced to swallow disgusting food when we decide to start a hunger strike.

I myself, realized in the end that I had to get out of the punishment cell in which they’d confined me so that I could fulfill my condition as a blogger, because in that silence and non-communication I was doing them a favor.

Since they took me out of that cell I have not swallowed the disgusting food that they distribute to the prisoners. I survive on crackers, sugar and milk provided by my family, and above all, on my ideas of freedom and my work as a blogger and writer.

With this I possess more than the dictatorship.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

Prison 1580. San Miguel del Padrón. May 2013

4 May 2013

Prison Diary XV From Prison 1580: Which The Commission Should Visit / Angel Santiesteban

It has nineteen barracks crammed with hungry and disappointed men who lately have been mocking the image of Cuban prisons the Government wants to show.

Here, in Prison 1580, they won’t bring them, says one, and everyone else laughs.

The prisoners in Cuba, in particular in Prison 1580, work the whole month, including Saturdays and under the sweltering sun, in heavy construction work to collect 103 Cuban pesos.

They return to the barracks frustrated. Helpless, they hide their tears behind vulgar expressions, offending the prison system and Government leaders, and so they vent their discomfort.

Add that of the 90 grams of rice due them they only get 40, and of the two boiled eggs most of the time they get only one, with the rest of their food consisting of a colorless, odorless, very bad tasting soup.

Added to that there are the beatings, the constant dungeons, the sentences that are extended, and the blackmail so that they won’t demand their “rights.”

The combination of all this is unbearable: the exploitation of man by man. But it will all be hidden from the national and international journalists Commission…

The Castros have always mocked the Commissions that visit prisons. They prepared a walk-through for a couple of prisons painted and decorated for the occasion, with prisoners warned not to say a word and that later compromises them and for those they refuse time off for good behavior.

Everything is a perfect representation of the scene of a play staged for the Commission to get a good impression. In other words, a constant mockery of human rights and those who protect them.

The prisoners only yearn for their freedom, understandably, and so they join forces in silence enduring everything to get out as soon as possible.

But many can not suppress their desire to protest and they approach me to denounce the continuing violations of which they are the objects and the injustices they suffered in their trials.

They place their hopes in me even though I assure them that I can not do much because their statements will only be read abroad. But they insist that they want the world to be aware of what is happening in Cuban jails.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

Prison 1580. April 2013

3 May 2013

URGENT: Reporters Without Borders Ask for Immediate Release of Angel Santiesteban

Call for the release of the blogger Angel Santiesteban-Prats, imprisoned two months ago.

Reporters Without Borders calls on the Cuban authorities to release Ángel Santiesteban-Prats, writer and author of the blog The Children Nobody Wanted, who was imprisoned on February 28, 2013, as soon as possible. The prisoner, currently on hunger strike, was placed in solitary confinement when he was transferred to [another] prison in early April.

“The same day that the authorities agreed to release the dissident journalist Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias, Angel Santiesteban-Prats was transferred to Prison 1850 and placed under a maximum severity. This detention is both absurd and cruel. The authorities, who believe that this will set an example, can never prevent pluralistic expression among the population. Ángel Santiesteban-Prats should be released without delay,” said Reporters Without Borders, which continues to encourage the blogger to end his hunger strike.

“The Cuban government, which in January 2013 assumed the presidency of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), fails to meet its international commitments on matters of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Member countries of CELAC should remind it of this requirement,” the organization added.

The blogger, who was transferred on 9 April to Prison 1850 in San Miguel del Padron (Havana), began a hunger strike shortly after he arrived at the prison, before they put him in an isolation cell, without light or water. He is only allowed to talk on the phone a few minutes a day. On April 22 Angel Santiesteban-Prats reported that he was assaulted by prison guards. Immobilized he was forced to swallow a stinking liquid that made him sick.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats was sentenced to five years in prison on December 8, 2012, officially for “violation of domicile and injury” following an expedited process. The writer, who has won several major literary awards, had been arrested several times before this final instance, because of his political stance. They redoubled their efforts to harass him since he created his blog, independent and critical of the government.

In addition to Ángel Santiesteban-Prats, there is another “information action” imprisoned in Cuba and that is it is Luis Antonio Torres, an employee of the newspaper Granma, who was arrested in 2011 and sentenced in July to fourteen years in prison for “espionage,” a crime he never committed. Reporters Without Borders is also calling for his swift release.

From Reporters Without Borders

29 April 2013

Open Letter from Angel Santiesteban to His Holiness Francisco

Havana, Cuba, April 3, 2013

“… justice is like a serpent, a viper, that never bites the boots,
it only bites the barefoot.”
Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero
Archbishop of San Salvador, murdered in 1980.

Your Holiness Francisco, first of all I want to thank God, for your devotion and faith, you who have been designated the first Pope, for other merits, Latin American, for the pride of those born on this continent; so it is somehow impossible not to consider you closer and more earthly, for your own Latino people.

Holy Father, I confess that since the loss of my beloved Pope John Paul II, my tie to Catholicism has dimmed, but You, despite the few days you have sat in your humble papal chair, you have practiced that modesty that elevates and exalts, which has already revolutionized the universal church.

Your Beatitude, I write from a prison in Cuba, where I am serving a wrongful conviction for a crime that could not be proved, for opening a critical blog from which I write on behalf of social justice, a penalty that has the sole purpose of teaching me a lesson,although they have not been able to silence my voice, but my heart will not let me cry in my favor, I prefer, I need, I am urged to seek justice for Prisoners of Conscience who suffer in Cuban jails.

Supreme Pontiff, the situation being experienced by our island is already known and unacceptable in the twenty-first century, to paraphrase our beloved Pope John Paul II, to not open itself to the world, to not even open its blinds to plural national thinking, as should correspond to any civilized nation in the world.

Messenger of Peace, we are prisoners because we overcome the fear; the need to be heard made us take off the gag, so we have faced the punishment of the dictatorship, which unfortunately holds to maintain silence and its discipline, attacking with imprisonment, beatings and the mysterious deaths of opposition leaders.

Your Grace, in this prison where I live with two brothers in the struggle: Lamberto Hernández Planas and Pedro de la Caridad Alvarez Pedroso, who have spent 22 years in prison, more than half of their lives, without having committed acts of bloodshed, without having hurt a human being; also suffering imprisonment are a married couple, Sonia Garro Alfonso and her husband Ramon Alejandro Munoz, who have not harmed anyone, only their ideas have been enough to keep them in jail without cause or conviction; as well as Calixto Martinez, for his journalism. But they are not unique; like them there are many throughout the country’s prison system.

Universal Pastor, my voice was one that opposed the last visit of Pope Benedict XVI, because I felt that was a mockery of the Vatican, as the Cuban government took advantage of his kindness and good intentions, and every papal visit only adds a false recognition before humanity, especially when Cuban representatives of the church that you represent ignores the Cuban opposition as a political force.

Dear Pope, José Martí, the Cuban most universal, addressing a soldier wrote on October 20, 1884: “A people is not founded, General, in the same way that one commands a military camp,” and the current governing Nomenklatura Cuba accepts no position different from the militarized.

We ask you, as Vicar of Christ, that do not rub against the manipulations of the Castro brothers, exercised for more than half a century since the beginnings of their  nefarious power in 1959. With humility, we pray that you be elusive to their  antichrist offerings. For the Cuban people it is not enough that we have have the holy days returned to us. We need freedom, “Which can not be anything other than freedom to think differently,” (Rosa Luxemburg), and that they accept and respect once again the Universal Human Rights.

Bishop of Rome, I have the hope that your papal administration will bring peace for Cubans. So that then, one Cuba united, without hatred or pain, will give you the spontaneous welcome no Pope has received on this soil.

Humbly I beg of you,

Ángel Santiesteban Prats
Writer
La Lima Prison
Havana, Cuba

* This letter was written by Ángel on April 3 when he had not yet been illegally and forcefully transferred to La Lima prison. It was just delivered yesterday April 24 at the headquarters of the Nunciature in Havana.

Today, April 25, Angel continues in the strict regime prison in 1580. The reason for his transfer was to prevent his being interviewed by the Commission of National and International Journalists who visited the center on April 9. This visit was one of many performances organized by the Castro regime to deceive the world about what really happens in their prisons, authentic concentration camps. Three weeks before the UN Human Rights Commission meets in Geneva and submits a report on the Castro government which will include aspects of prison policy, the committee of journalists — without the least ethical principles — counting on the complicit silence with all the human rights violations committed by the dictatorship. The UN Human Rights Commission, based in Geneva, now has in its hands the possibility to remedy such an affront to the dignity committed by the journalists. In a few days we will know if they will.

25 April 2013

Angel Santiesteban: Open Letter to the UN Commission on Human Rights*

I write to you from the depths of despair produced by being a prisoner of conscience in one of the horrendous prisons of the Castro brothers. In their hands is the opportunity to impose agony upon an extensive penal population that survives the cruelest famine and physical and psychological torture.

To hide the truth, I was taken on April 9 just before international journalists arrived at La Lima prison. They took me out by the back door and I was taken to another prison, 1580, where they have committed all sorts of outrages and humiliations worthy of Nazi concentration camps.

The lack of food and proper sanitation are the other elements that add up to make this a real prison camp. They violate the most basic rights of human beings and their families. Prisoners live crammed together amid continuing violence.

In recent months there have been two large fires of unexplained causes. Multiple suicides are also a daily part of life in prison.

Upon my arrival, after several days of hunger strike and being put in solitary with no light, no water, no clothes or toiletries, I was attacked by several guards, holding me by my limbs while another squeezed my nostrils shut until I opened my mouth to breathe, and then they put stinking soup in my mouth that choked me; and so, over and over, until I was on the floor completely covered in the food helpless to avoid it.

I want to report to Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Quintana, head of the Havana Province.

I also want to clarify that my situation is not the worst. I would like them to listen to the abused themselves so that they can explain the hell in which they live. I fear not being credible enough to expose the horror and the wickedness that we suffer daily.

The dictatorship must understand once and for all that it is impossible to maintain disastrous power based on the people’s pain.

We beg this to take the testimony firsthand, under full oath, and ask God to put his pitying hands on this country forgotten by the international community, and that they manage to collect the testimonies of prisoners without their being threatened ahead of time, as usual.

We ask that Cuba sign the UN covenants and accept the statements of Human Rights, if not, to take appropriate measures to expel the concert of free nations which aims to live undiscovered barbarism imposed on us.

We are a devastated country which — despite these fifty-four years of slavery — we still dream of becoming a prosperous nation.

Please accept my thanks in advance.

Ángel Santiesteban Prats

Prisión 1580. San Miguel del Padrón, Havana. Cuba.

* The HRC in Geneva, Switzerland, was created by 47 member states on March 15, 2006 in the Assembly of the United Nations, to promote universal respect for the protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms of all persons, without distinction of any kind, and in a fair and equitable manner. Along with the Security Council, these are two of the principal organs of the highest level and prestige within the UN system.

23 April 2013

Angel Santiesteban Completes 10th Day on Hunger Strike. Report.

Yesterday, April 16, 2013, the attorney Amelia Rodríguez Cala interviewed Angel in Prison 1580.

Angel has been removed from the punishment cell but remains under very severe conditions and maintains his hunger strike until they respect his rights as a citizen and as a prisoner — whatever happens. He is unjustly imprisoned after a trial fabricated by State Security with the only purpose of silencing and discrediting him as a person and as the great writer he is.

Angel has lost a great deal of weight and today completed day ten without eating or drinking. We fear for his health and his life.

From here we hold Raul Castro responsible for everything that happens to Angel and we demand he be returned to La Lima prison from where — although he shouldn’t be there serving any sentence at all — he should not have been removed against his will and violently.

Every day that Angel is made to pay in the miserable Castro prisons for crimes he never committed, having proved his innocence ad infinitum, will be one more day that the dictatorship demonstrates to the world how it lies about the situation on the Island, and another day that the media learns about how it has misled them about the living conditions within the Castros’ prisons — and of course in the whole Island.

The living conditions in Cuba are miserable and freedom isn’t even a memory;  repression and violence on the part of State Security is our daily bread; the acts of repudiation are the expression of how they manipulate the people to punish the dissidence; the media are mere channels of propaganda; every day more Cubans risk their lives to escape from this island, not wanting to imagine what life is like in the Castro prisons, true concentration camps where they are not human beings, only objects, objectified bodies whom they constantly humiliate, deprive of all rights, and force to live in subhuman conditions and all this in the name of the “humanist” Revolution that the Castro dynasty has ruled over for 54 years.

We demand that Angel be returned to La Lima Prison immediately and that they guarantee ALL his rights.

We hold Raul Castro Ruz directly responsible, for Angel’s safety and integrity and reiterate that the same justice and the same rights that we demand for Angel we demand for all the prisoners in Cuba. And so, one more time, we demand the release of ALL THE POLITICAL PRISONERS.

We remember, Mr. Raul Castro, that when you assumed the presidency of CELAC you promised that you would act “with total fidelity to international law, the Charter of the United nations and the fundamental principles that govern relations between countries.” During your speech of January 28, 2013, you also said, “We reject interference, the threat and use of force, and dedicate ourselves to dialog.” What happened to your promises? You should be ashamed and you should behave in conformance with the commitment you yourself assumed.

The Editor, in the name of Angel’s family and friends.

17 April 2013

God Inc.

From Monday the 8th at 7pm. With0ut water, nor clothes, nor toiletries, without light, on a concrete bed.

God Inc.

Imitating my patriotic readings
they suppressed my horizon.
I took hold of your name,
of memory the last station.

Every letter engraved
on the silent walls of my cell,
swiftly came the hummingbirds
to applaud the end of my concert.

The  spit lost its reach,
roaches played on my face,
my mother gave me a one way ticket
although she knew that love wasn’t surrendering.

The train departed with one aboard,
smudging the image on the window,
for an instance two dried up cats
were following the shadow of a dream.

Prison. 1580  San Miguel del Padrón
In solitary confinement and starvation.

epitaph
Here lies Angel Santiesteban Prats, controversial, patriot, slandered and friend.
He lived and died as he imagined the best novels.

Translated by Ernesto Suarez

12 April 2013