Friday, 18 April 2008 (20 hours ago)
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent with reporting from Cuba
Normando Hernandez Gonzales, 38, received 25 years imprisonment as
authorities deemed his journalistic activities dangerous to state
security.
HAVANA, CUBA (BosNewsLife)-- One of Cuba's youngest "prisoners of
conscience" was recovering Friday, April 18, after he was nearly
strangled to death by a fellow prisoner, while security personnel
watched nearby, pro-democracy activists and family said.
Normando Hernandez Gonzales, 38, was allegedly attacked Tuesday, April
14, by a fellow inmate at the Carlos J. Finlay military hospital in
Havana, where he has been hospitalized for seven months due to
tuberculosis and several other potentially life-threatening diseases,
all of them contracted in jail.
He was transferred last September from Kilo 7 Prison, in central
Camaguey Province, north to the hospital in the Cuban capital, a
nine-hour bus ride away.
His wife Yaraí Reyes Marín explained in a telephone statement released
by the Cuban Democratic Directorate (CDD), a pro-democracy group, that
her husband was nearly strangled to death by a common prisoner sentenced
for murdering a police officer.
GUARDS WATCHING
The attack happened as four guards were watching, she was quoted as
saying, adding that another prisoner unsuccessfully attempted to defend
Hernandez Gonzalez.
As the guards did not immediately intervene, the attack nearly rendered
the young prisoner of conscience unconscious, and left his flesh marked
with gouges, the Cuban Democratic Directorate (CDD) quoted his wife as
saying.
He, "has gouges on his neck and left shoulder...[The guards] waited
until he was partially suffocated, and after that, when they saw that
the other prisoner was unable to remove the attacker from Normando, that
was when they went in to remove him," Reyes Marín reportedly said.
The attacker, identified only as Mario, did not exhibit any symptoms of
illness, and had been admitted to the hospital 20 days before the attack
took place, during which time he had persistently verbally harassed the
political prisoner, the CDD said.
RELIGIOUS RIGHTS
It came just weeks after religious rights group Christian Solidarity
Worldwide said in a report that Hernández González has been denied the
right to pastoral visits.
As editor of an independent news agency, the Colegio de Periodistas
Independientes de Camagüey (CPIC), he was sentenced to 25 years in
prison in 2003 on what rights groups have described as "trumped-up"
charges of crimes against state security. Three other independent
journalists were tried in the same hearing.
He was one of some 75 dissidents, including Christians, detained during
what became known among human rights as 'Black Spring'. When the March,
2003 crackdown began, he reportedly eluded arrest for 24 hours so he
could celebrate his daughter's first birthday, and then he turned
himself in. Authorities have in the past denied the existence of
dissidents on the Communist-run island.
DEMOCRATIC DEVELOPMENTS?
There have been some hopes among Western observers that Raul Castro, who
succeeded his frail brother Fidel as Cuba's leader this year, will
encourage at least some democratic changes in the country and improve
religious and political rights.
However the 76-year-old has made clear to the National Assembly he will
consult his brother on important decisions. Amid political uncertainty,
mission broadcaster HCJB Global said it would continue Spanish programs
to Cuba via shortwave from South America.
"Hundreds of listeners have enrolled in the ministry's Bible Institute
of the Air, a Spanish correspondence program incorporating radio
broadcasts," said HCJB Global. "In addition, numerous pastoral training
workshops, held in conjunction with Leadership Resources International,
have been held in Cuba since the mid-1990s."
The call-letters 'HCJB' stand for 'Heralding Christ Jesus' Blessings'.
http://www.bosnewslife.com/news/3569-news-alert-cuba-prisoner-of-conscience-nearly
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