Prison Diary XX. With his mouth sewn shut and smeared with excrement, a young man demands his rights

I found myself, like most of the time, writing on my bed when I heard the call, “Political, Political”; and they came to me in haste. Outside, they told me, there was a man who sewed his mouth shut with wire, come.

Really, to think about the scene makes me bitter. “I’m not a maxillofacial doctor, why, then, my presence?” I said, trying to avoid it. It was he who was calling, they told me, “He wants to talk with you.” Then, I couldn’t stay away. As I approached I heard his desperate voice, calling me, between lips barely open.

To describe the horror in a way that someone who hasn’t seen it can imagine it, is not possible: he stopped in front of the patio door that leads to my hut, his body smeared with fecal waste, holding a pail of dung with the aim of evading the guards who didn’t dare to force him back to his cell. The worst were his lips sewn with wire. The first question I asked myself was what level of desperation, helplessness and sadness could have forced him to commit such a folly, because by his aspect he doesn’t seem to be mentally ill.

With difficulty I could understand that he was desperate because the guards did not want to hear his being right. They just threatened and beat him every time he demanded his rights, and this had led him to take that step. Several times he assured me he wasn’t crazy: he tells me that if the Rapporteurs of the Commission of Human Rights come to see me, don’t be afraid to tell the truth.

I nodded my head in agreement, I’m always overwhelmed by the anxiety of my powerlessness to help. I wouldn’t have minded touching and cleaning those lips that were beginning to show signs of infection, a reason for their taking him to the nurse in those conditions.

I swore that within my humble means, I would inform international public opinion, and if the Rapporteurs came to Cuba, I would talk to them about him.

Before he left I tried to convince him that he had accomplished his purpose; the prison and its leadership felt the guilt of not having listened, the other inmates as well, so I asked if it made sense to continue in such conditions, to the point of putting his life in danger. He said, “Yes, Political, don’t think that I came to you without knowing who you are, in the cell told me how they force-fed you, if you weren’t there or in the hospital.”

I could only ask God to protect him.

Finally he responded to the constant order of the guards to continue to his cell.

“Don’t forget me, Political,” he said, and I couldn’t stop my eyes from tearing up. In those few minutes we had shared between us a solidarity and brotherhood which rose above the difficult situation in which we live.

“I embrace you,” he said. “I you, as well,” I responded and he walked proudly to the dirty and dark recesses of the punishment cells.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats
Prison 1580. May 2013

22 May 2013

The Santiesteban Case: A Crude Judicial Hoax / Angel Santiesteban

Literature and Justice

The award-winning writer Angel Santiesteban is imprisoned unjustly for his confrontational attitude to the Castro regime.

On Wednesday, February 27, at the headquarters of the Estado de Sats project there was a farewell to Angel Santiesteban Prats, the award-winning writer. The next morning, he will present himself to serve the prison sentence imposed on him.

That same day, on asking my opinion as a lawyer, I began to know the details of his case. When I started to read the documentation, the conviction that I was in the presence of a crude judicial hoax took hold of me.

The center of Santiesteban’s misfortunes is his ex-wife Kenia Rodriguez Guzman. She wants to emigrate, but as a loving mother she wants to do so together with Eduardo, the son of her union with Angel. For this she needed his authorization; but he does not want to leave Cuba nor be separated from his offspring, so he refused permission and expressed his willingness to assume custody of and care for the boy when she left.

It was then that the former wife, who on top of everything suffers from psychiatric disorders, offered to make accusations that involved him in criminal proceedings. On a first occasion, the complaint for an offense of threats failed, as the prominent writer was acquitted.

In July 2009, Kenya accused her former husband of trespassing into her home and beating her in the face. With the passage of time, she “enriched” her statement, saying he had stolen her family jewels and, almost a month later, that he had raped her and tried to murder her by suffocating her with a pillow. There was also talk about an alleged attempt to burn down Kenia’s house.

In short, the authorities discarded the additional complaints of the woman as unfounded. Naturally, the question arises: If we reach the conclusion that she lied about the alleged theft, murder and rape, then why not admit the probable falsity of the other complaints that she made!

This would follow not only from the contradictory testimony of the complainant, but also other elements of the case. Eduardo‘s teacher testified to a conversation with him: At first, the child accused his father to her, but then began to cry and on the teacher asking why he was crying, the boy told her that his mother told him to lie against Angel.

Alexis Quintana deserves special mention. This individual, in his alleged status as the only eyewitness, was the star of the havoc that Santiesteban, according to what Quintana said, tried to wreak in Kenia’s home. However, in a video presented to the Court, Quintana acknowledged that he had seen nothing, and that his statement was lies, made at the insistence of the woman, and that he received gifts in payment for it.

These two statements are very important, not for their relationship with the facts of the case (with which they have no direct link), but for what they bring to the lack of credibility of the complainant. If she does not hesitate to influence others — including her own son!– to formulate false statements against the object of her hatred, why wouldn’t she herself lie!

Three witnesses testified to having been with the defendant in another place at the time of the alleged incidents. The Court, in rejecting these witnesses, invokes the statement of the minor child Eduardo. However, he said later he spent the afternoon only in his father’s house, so that his statement did not in any way contradict the other three witnesses, who were ignored in a Olympian manner.

Given the absence of incriminating evidence, the courtroom, to back up the version of the complainant, called a handwriting expert. Like the charlatans that follow Lombroso to “demonstrate the responsibility” of an accused person, studying the shape of his ears or the prominence of his chin, so the supposed expert dared to swear before the Court that Santiesteban was guilty… based on his handwriting!

After forcing Angel to copy by hand an entire page of the garbage published by the official newspaper Granma, a lieutenant colonel in the Interior Ministry rose to assert nothing more and nothing less than… The size, form and slant of his handwriting constituted irrefutable proof the he was guilty of the charges.

In short, the Court, based on the statements of an enemy of the accused (who is also a mental patient), and the “handwriting expert,” declared Santiesteban guilt of the crimes of housebreaking and serious injury.

Article 287.1 of the Penal Code, which establishes penalties of three months to one year, or a simple fine, was used to describe the first of two violations; however for this crime the court set the illegal sentence of two years in prison, double the maximum allowed! For the serious injuries, which call for a sentence of between two and five years, the court imposed the upper limit. Suspicious supreme severity for an intellectual lacking a criminal record!

With respect to those bodily injuries, their seriousness was established based on the supposed perforation of an eardrum, causing hearing loss. But in the medical certificate not a single word is said about it. Thus, even if one considers some aggression on Angel’s part, there was reasonable doubt that this event cause the injury suffered by Kenya, who was even hit by a vehicle.

Another curious fact: Although this was supposedly a common — not a political — case, the appeal was heard by the Court for Crimes against State Security. The delay of years undergone in the conduct of this case and the whole set of circumstances already mentioned, lead us to assume that Angel Santiesteban is being pursued for the rebellious stance he took against the regime.

National and international public opinion must interest itself in this case.

Rene Gomez Manzano
Attorney and Freelance Journalist
Havana, March 4, 2013

21 May 2013

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

Prison Diary XVIII: Those Who Live Off The Government / Angel Santiesteban

A few days ago it was suggested to me in a letter that someday, in another government of course, I could be Minister of Culture, which I doubt because I think politics is not my thing. But if being a politician is saying what you think and going against the interests of the current president, then I am a politician, or a romantic risking that I don’t get tired of suffering until the coming of the happiness to this country that it has deserved for so many years.

In this future government I don’t doubt that there will be the same people who now support the dictatorship.

Unfortunately they are corks*, intellectuals without honor, allying themselves for their personal benefit to communism and fascism.

We see them there, and they, as usual, extend a greeting to me that if I escape they will label me spiteful and say that I cannot adjust to the new national force for a better country.

Those of us who were born to suffer, those of us who do not accept gifts from wherever they come, those of us who think first of Martí, we never enter into these political alliances.

For me, a president is nothing more than a good administrator, and if we get one, then we will see our economy and our culture flourish. What more can we ask for? With that I will be deeply happy. I want a participatory democracy, a country without a secret police that persecutes the opposition and a culture that is not censored for expressing ideas contrary to the State.

In short, I want a free country and that’s why I wake up every morning in this prison completely sure that José Martí’s dream is coming. I am happy in the place that I am. I am at the side of the suffered with Bishop Espada, Father Jos” Agustín Caballero and Félix Varela; I am where I am because I am continuing along the path laid for us by Martí, Céspedes, Agramonte, Maceo. And accompanying me on this path are hundreds of Cubans like Antonio Rodiles, Jose Daniel Ferrer, Guillermo Fariñas, Berta Soler, Hector Maseda, Angel Moya, Cuesta Morúa, Antunez, Manzano and Palacio, among many, who risk their lives and those of their families to achieve our longed for freedom, not to mention the community of bloggers and independent journalists.

I am going to be this: a citizen in the service of good causes, and I’ll be with the rest of the noble and honest intellectuals creating our works which is the best omen.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats
Prison 1580. May 2013

*Translator’s note: “Corks” in the sense that they keep bobbing to the surface.

17 May 2013

Angel Santiesteban Harassed and Isolated in Prison 1580. Raul Castro Responsible for His Safety / Angel Santiesteban

After several days of staging a scene in the tropical paradise prison system for the accredited “press” and the examination of the UN Human Rights Council, where Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said he will accept the recommendations of the international body and apply them to the Castro prison system and he  said he will allow the Red Cross visits, everything is the same or worse. Nothing changed and never will change because changes will never come from those who have caused the Cuban tragedy. The only change possible is to root out the evil dynastic dictatorship of the sadistic Castro brothers.

Cuba is a small island in whose geography is the largest concentration of jails in the world. The Island of Happiness is a huge prison where, in its many overcrowded concentration camps live the tortured, humiliated and starved thousands of prisoners, guilty or not, who have rights like any human being; rights that the regime in Havana never respected. To the common prisoners must be added the more than hundred prisoners of conscience who are caged to silence them on false charges of common crimes, such as Angel Santiesteban.

Fortunately, through Angel — and despite the relentless efforts of his jailers to silence him — we know that in that grisly concentration camp in which he is located, the 1580 Prison in San Miguel del Padrón, Havana, on the 5th May there was the beginning of riot caused by the indignation of the prison population on seeing how two thugs torturing a young black man, mentally ill, whose humanity is locked in there. Thanks to the solidarity of all, they left the unfortunate boy in peace and the inmates calmed down.

But from this episode we must extract two important things. One is that not even in such terrible conditions of life do solidarity and values disappear. Although there will always be those who choose to ally themselves with their executioners, the majority will preserves and defend their dignity. If they are often silent it is just to avoid greater evils, but moments of maximum cruelty arrive, as Angel related, the principles take over from fear and all become a voice against injustice. This  stopped the savagery that might have killed the boy.

But, and no less important, is when barbarism is manifested with all the fury, the clamor of the prisoners is not limited only to scream against it and stop it, but it becomes a cry for freedom, for democracy, against the dictatorship, against the dictator and a stern warning that should not go unnoticed by anyone, especially Raul Castro and the international organizations that do little or nothing to stop the accumulated abuses from the incredible 54 years of so-called “Revolution”.

There were common criminals who turned their pleas for justice for their fellow prisoner into slogans for freedom and against the dictatorship. Common criminals  who, possibly, when they lived in freedom (as it’s defined in Cuba) had never questioned the legitimacy or otherwise of the government that enslaves them; the inefficient, shameless and manipulative government that is the one truly guilty for their being there, that has forced them to commit a crime with the sole purpose to survive and feed their families.

This is not about justifying crime. Not at all. But we all know that justice in Cuba is nothing more but a subsidiary power and dependent on political power which administers revenge more than actual criminal convictions. And, betraying the promise that the Revolution was “a revolution of the humble, by the humble and for the humble,” it vents its rage over the most humble and the most vulnerable. And even more so with those who struggle for freedom.

It is precisely the full force of such arbitrariness and injustice in Cuba that “manufactures” dissidents and opponents, and in this process the concentration camps are no exception. On the contrary. This beginning of mutiny has shown that, when inmates have nothing to lose, they lose fear and regain dignity.

Angel is being abused differently, but no less cruelly. He is being tortured psychologically. They have cut off all means of communication with his family, except for those two measly minutes on the phone every so often. They have taken from him open communication with his peers, who have been harassed and threatened with punishment if they have anything to do with him. But once again, showing courage and intelligence, there many people who create strategies to communicate without being noticed by the guards and by the inmates whom the guards bribe.

Angel is where he doesn’t have to be. He is suffering vengeance for having dared to express himself freely. They have tried to turn him into an abuser and a rapist, but they had nothing to use in this intent because nobody believed it. The unfortunate few who spoke out against him were those who, threatened and pressured, didn’t know how to preserve their dignity or at least to remain silent.

The eyes of the civilized world are on and the abuses they commit. The gaze of international organizations is on Angel Santiesteban and are there are ever more who are speaking up in his favor. The more abuses committed against him, the more solidarity grows, aroused by the injustice.

Raul Castro knows it and he is directly responsible for anything that may happen to Angel. As are the army of eunuchs who fulfill their miserable orders, but not only as obedient soldiers but as genuine sadists manifesting all their murderous instincts.

And once again, and we will not tire of repeating it until we have justice for Angel: we demand his immediate transfer to La Lima Prison where, despite not having to be there, he should never have been transferred illegally and violently. We demand absolute respect for his rights and that he be given a fair trial with full due process, with those who were conspicuous by their complete absence in the trial for him, who are now imprisoned.

We demand that Angel be left in peace to work, doing what he can do like nobody else: write. We recall that while he being beaten, humiliated and isolated, there are international judges reading and evaluating his work; prestigious publishers reading his manuscripts. And when he once again wins prizes and is published, as surely will happen very soon, the world press will report that if he can not collect his prizes, or attend presentations of his books because he is in a Cuban concentration camp, that is not Guantanamo but might as well be.

Look after Angel and try not to continue throwing mud on yourselves. In today’s world nothing can be hidden and, sooner or later, everything is known. So it will be very easy to add to the long list of crimes, that the regime has committed and is committing, this criminal proceeding against an intellectual amid growing outrage while his tormentors bury themselves ever deeper in their rotten and fearful actions. And this must always be paid for.

We also remind them, once again, that the same rights we demand for Angel, we demand for the entire prison population, and in particular we demand the immediate release of prisoners of conscience.

They will never silence the truth. History has proved it. When they are digging their claws into Angel Santiesteban they are further strengthening the symbol of freedom he has already become.

So the demand is clear: Raul Castro, do the right thing and order justice done for Angel and do not forget even for a moment that you are and will remain solely responsible for the physical and mental integrity of Angel.

On behalf of the family and friends of Angel Santiesteban-Prats

The Editors

Note: In this documentary, and especially from minute 24.30, you can see and understand how the Nazis manipulated and hid what they did in the concentration camps by preparing a perfect theater in Theresienstadt where they took the Red Cross delegates and showed them the “wonderful” life of the Jews there. The strategy of staging the Nazis used then was copied by the regime in Havana and so continue to lie to international public opinion about what really happens in their concentration camps. What is curious and incomprehensible is that today, when we have the help of technology and nothing can be hidden and all the evidence of what happens is within reach of everyone, there are still those who deny it and defend it from above.

The Red Cross the Third Reich

Site manager’s note: This third-party video is in Spanish (and German, French and English) and is included here to show the whole post as it was posted, but is not translated.

13 May 2013

SOS: Attempted Riot in Prison 1580. Increase in Repression Against Angel Santiesteban and the Other Inmates

After the attempted riot in Prison 1580

Last night, Sunday May 5 at 7:45 PM, an inmate — Reniel Agramonte Valle — was beaten by two guards: Jesus and Andy the karate man. The inmates of both barracks started shouting against abuse and almost all looked through the windows and bars while the guards continued the abuse of the black, slight and famished 24-year-old.

The prisoners began to hit the gate until it broke and opened; the guards seeing the possible population unnerved all about them, fled and forgot how numerous they and their batons were, the same ones who minutes before struck the prisoner in question, and who by then had been taking their pills for chronic mental illness that are supplied  to them several times a day.

To stop the potential riot, the senior officer, when he reached the scene, freed the prisoner, and when they saw him return to the barracks it began to calm the spirits of his comrades who had already begun yelling “Down with Fidel,” “Down with dictatorship,” “Tomorrow we will get the news to Radio Martí,” “Assassins,” and “Abusers,” among others.

This morning, when the inmates attended the breakfast, they were met with German shepherds, the ones who on just seeing a prison uniform begin to bark and are very aggressive with them, Nazi-style.

In previous days they also beat several prisoners and after the beatings, they put them in cells hidden from the eyes of the rest of the prison population to hide their injuries and bodily signs of violence against them.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats
Prison 1580, San Miguel del Padrón

Sowing Terror

One day after the attempted riot in the prison, they began the interviews and the removal of all persons who regularly conversed with me.

They want to keep inmates away from me because they consider a dangerous element my relating to them. And so they were taken to other barracks.

Now the prisoners afraid to approach me because they don’t want to be harmed. I am also concerned about some who claim not to care; because when they receive reprisals for being close to me, my guilty conscience is great because their fates are worse just for talking to me.

Even so, some have changed strategy and started to leave me papers on my bed with silent solidarity messages.

A prisoner on a hunger strike, Jesús Guerra Camejo, for talking with me, has also been taken from the company to an unknown destination.

The inmates are constantly interviewed to obtain information about me, writing or any data they might provide about me.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats
Prison 1580, San Miguel del Padrón

10 May 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