The Crime of Illegal Exit

The Crime of Illegal Exit
at 9:55 AM Friday, June 5, 2009

Yesterday, seven Cubans set out for the United States in a rickety
plastic foam boat, which began to fall apart in the water, and instead
ended up in front of Havana's Malecon seafront boulevard (ironically,
right next to the U.S. Interests Section).

According to the AP, "a police officer at the scene said the men were
being taken home, not to jail, because they had not committed any crime."

There are estimated to be thousands of Cubans in prison for "illegal
exit," an act reminiscent of the courage and ingenuity of East Germans
trying to cross the Berlin Wall towards freedom during the Cold War, but
a tragic modern day reality in the world's remaining totalitarian states
-- namely, North Korea, Burma and Cuba.

Many more are believed to have "disappeared" during attempts to exit the
island. Francisco Chaviano González tried to start a registry of such
disappearances inside Cuba but was arrested in 1994 and sentenced to 15
years of prison for revealing "state secrets." Chaviano served 13 years
as an Amnesty International "prisoner of conscience" and was released in
2007 in very ill health.

Article 216 of the Cuban penal code defines illegal exit and the
penalties for this crime:

"a person who leaves or commits acts preparatory to leaving the national
territory without complying with legal formalities shall be subject to
imprisonment for from one to three years or a fine of three hundred to
one thousand currency units."

It's timely to note that according to the 2005 Migration Accords, the
Cuban regime agreed to allow U.S. diplomats in Havana to monitor the
well-being of Cubans intercepted at sea and repatriated by the U.S.
Coast Guard after attempting to flee the island. One of the main reasons
the migration talks between the U.S. and Cuba were suspended in 2004 is
that the Cuban regime refused to allow U.S. diplomats to travel
throughout the island to do so.

Therefore, it'll be tough to truly determine whether these seven Cubans
were in fact taken home or imprisoned, but according the Cuban penal
code; the Castro regime's brutal record; and to this picture taken upon
their capture, the later is definitely more likely.

Capitol Hill Cubans: The Crime of Illegal Exit (5 June 2009)

http://www.capitolhillcubans.com/2009/06/crime-of-illegal-exit.html