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BLIND CUBAN ...BEATEN AND IMPRISONED WITHOUT TRIAL ....FOR SPEAKING FREELY IN CASTROS CUBA.

HAVANA,CUBA.....BLIND CUBAN PRESSES FIGHT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
They've taken his cane and dark glasses but not his resolve. His dark glasses and cane are gone. So is his Braille Bible.

Juan Carlos Gonzalez, a blind political activist jailed in March, doesn't have much left. Not even his health, he tells his wife in letters from his jail cell.

But, he writes her, he'd "rather be insane or dead" than give up his fight for human rights in Cuba.

Mr. Gonzalez, a 37-year-old lawyer, is among the scores of dissidents working to bring change to this country even after Cuban lawmakers in June voted to make socialism "irreversible." His imprisonment, virtually unknown inside Cuba, has sparked indignation among human-rights activists and the blind as far away as Washington, Brussels, Belgium; and Capetown, South Africa.

Police arrested Mr. Gonzalez and seven others on March 4 while they were protesting the reported choking of a journalist in Ciego de Avila in central Cuba. One officer allegedly hit the blind man with a pistol butt, causing a head wound that needed five stitches to close.

Authorities accuse Mr. González of public disorder and "disrespect," offenses punishable by up to three years in jail. He has not yet been tried. Bail has been denied because of what authorities describe as his "dangerousness," his wife said.

He is now in a prison in Holguin, 200 miles from home. He says his health is deteriorating, and he's convinced he'll never make it out of jail alive, said his wife, Maritza Calderin. "He wants to run from prison screaming," she said by phone from the central
city of Holguin. Prison officials declined to comment.

Cuba has not let the Red Cross inspect prisons since 1989. Cuban officials say many claims of prison abuse are politically motivated. Others are made by international organizations looking for approval from Washington, one Cuban official said.

"No one's going to come out in defense of Cuba, the only communist country in the hemisphere, a place of supposed human-rights violations. It's an easy target," he said.

Mr. Gonzalez's ordeal began after he took part in a pro-democracy protest in Ciego de Avila. Police arrived and one of them allegedly choked journalist Jesus Alvarez. Mr. Alvarez fainted and was hospitalized. Several activists and journalists later went to the hospital, joined Mr. Alvarez and chanted, "Long live free Cuba! Long live human rights!"

Police arrested Mr. Gonzalez and at least seven others. On March 10, authorities raided a library that Mr. Gonzalez had founded. State security agents confiscated books, including several in Braille.

Robert Kent, co-chairman of Friends of Cuban Libraries, whose group supports the growing number of independent librarians in Cuba, called the case shocking.

Others agree. The World Blind Union, which says it represents 180 million blind and visually impaired people in 162 countries, has sent two letters of protest to the Cuban government. "Unfortunately, we have had no answer from the Cuban authorities yet," said Kicki Nordstrom, president of the union, which plans to hold its annual meeting in Havana in September.

The Coalition of Cuban-American Women, the human-rights group Pax Christi and Christian Solidarity Worldwide are among other organizations that have protested Mr. Gonzalez's arrest. Ms. Calderin said her husband began suffering from claustrophobia soon after landing in jail. For at least three days, she said, he was confined to a small cell that prisoners call "the drawer."

In an April 30 letter, Mr. Gonzalez said he asked to see a doctor, preferably a psychologist. Instead, he said, prison officials sent a psychiatrist who told him his condition would improve "if I cooperated with them." Mr. Gonzalez said he replied, "Principles are non-negotiable." He was given a pill and three hours later said he felt severe chest pains. "I felt I was in danger of death, brain damage or irreversible insanity." Doctors told him there was nothing wrong with him, he said.

As the weeks passed, his health worsened and he has become increasingly desperate, his wife said. "I know that I will not come out of this place alive," he wrote in a June 25 letter. "I beg for medical assistance and although different specialists have visited me, they don't take any tests to find out what the problem is."

Amnesty International said in its 2002 report that medical care in Cuban prisons was inadequate last year. Medicine and supplies were scarce and although the longtime U.S. ban on trade with Cuba was a factor, "there were concerns that in some cases care was deliberately withheld from prisoners of conscience or other political prisoners," the report said.

Prisoner Marcelo Amelo Rodriguez, 52, died while in custody in May 2001 after suffering from chest pains. His family later accused prison officials of denying him proper care, according to Amnesty International. Another dissident prisoner, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, stopped eating in April 2001 to protest the lack of medical care. He ended his monthlong strike after authorities let him see a lung specialist, the report said.

Cuban officials say the days of political disappearances and executions have been gone for more than four decades. But there are laws, they say, and even dissidents must obey them or risk jail. Mr. Gonzalez says he'll continue seeking reforms, even if it kills him. "If I die, I will die content knowing that I was defending the cause of God," he wrote. "I do not fear death. 07/19/2002  "Tracey Eaton / The Dallas Morning News

Dear Brothers and Sisters: With tears in my eyes and a heart filled with gratitude, I write you these lines. When one is considered an outcast in your own land, treated like scum of the world, the light that emanates from your love and fraternity for my dear blind husband and his brothers who struggle, light the path of darkness we are forced to walk.

The mistreatments my blind husband has suffered on different occasions at the hand of the State Security of my country, have torn my soul with a pain I have expressed in written articles and verse, though I am not a writer. I hope one day I have the possibility of sending them to you so that you may realize that our drama, for which I pray does not become a tragedy, is real.

A foreign journalist I will not identify, called me last week, doubting this reality - probably as so many others, a victim of deceit. The news reporter had received an email concerning my husband, sent to the world by friends who help us break our isolation and lack of communication. I recommended the skeptic journalist read the book "Against All Hope" written by the ex-political prisoner Valladares and to call me afterwards. If you are able, I also urge you to read it.

Dear brothers, in the sphere of ideas, our situation is terrifying. Those who dare express thoughts contrary to the official ones are watched, followed, mistreated, beaten, and imprisoned. The day of his detention, my blind husband was dragged and wounded on his forehead with the butt of a pistol by a State Security official. He's been in prison without a trial or right of release on bail for four months, three of them without his cane, (the eyes of the blind), as without his glasses and bible.

I have faith that one day not too far in the future, our Lord and God will shut the doors of horror so that this night, which so many times seem never-ending, will become diaphanous light of an eternal dawn.

Juan Carlos and his compatriots struggle so that dissenting is not considered a crime but a sacred right. May God compensate all of you plentifully for your generosity towards them. Receive His blessed kiss. Eternally grateful, Maritza Calderin Columbie wife of Juan Carlos Gonzalez Leiva, blind cuban incarcerated in the Cuban State Security of Holguin. Given via telephone from Cuba. Recorded, transcribed and translated in the USA Further information: Coalition of Cuban-American Women

MORE CUBAN JAILS.....AND DISSENTERS
(Guantanamo, Cuba)
Alberto Martinez, 17 years old is the youngest political prisoner in Combinado de Guantánamo, soon he will be sanctioned for the presumed crime of illegally leaving the country. This time he claims he was reading a magazine called “ Democracy is a discussion” but it was confiscated, for the State Security confiscates all literature that is not related to communism or the communist party.

On the other hand, political prisoner Ernesto Lucas Corral informed that in wing AT 500 of this same prison, an ordinance has been imposed prohibiting any form of correspondence between prisoners and their relatives. The internal opposition views this action as an isolation measure. 

Lieutenant Flavio Hernandez Castellanos, second in Command of wing AT 500 of the Combinado’s prison, read the ordinance in question.

Lucas Corral also pointed out that an uncertain number of prisoners in this jail; sleep in planks of cane trash when there is no mattress for his assigned bed. Others lack a simple sheet to cover themselves in the cold nights.

Equally, it has been denounced that the food given to the prisoners is terrible: sometimes they are given 30 grams of bread and a glass of tea for breakfast, 40 grams of soup and rice for lunch at about 10 in the morning, and the same portion at three in the afternoon for dinner. That is all the food they receive in a 24 hours day.

In this same prison, Crescencio Rivelta Corella, a common prisoner, has been on a hunger strike for the past 10 days, Nestor weighs 30 kilograms with 1,50 meters in height. He suffers from an ulcer and this strike can only deteriorate his health even more. 

The only request made by this humble Cuban to his jailers has been a blanket to cover himself with, during the cold winter nights. But his request has fallen into deaf ears.

Reporting from the city of Guantanamo, Luis Torres Cardosa, LUX INFOPRESS.
Given to the Information Bridge Cuba Miami