Angel Santiesteban Today Finishes Four Months in Jail

Angel Santiesteban Today Finishes Four Months in Jail / Angel Santiesteban
Posted on July 1, 2013

Today, June 28, 2013, Angel Santiesteban-Prats finishes four months
incarcerated in the Castro concentration camp 1580, El Pitirre, San
Miguel Del Padron, Havana. There have been 121 days plus nights in which
they have not even managed to diminish his optimism.

The same four months in which the dictatorship of the younger of the
Castros has continued tarnishing with more blood his own criminal
record, for which sooner or later, he must account to Justice. And they
will come to that examination, from the most servile henchmen to the
highest responsible for the systemic violation of all human, civil and
political rights, that keep as prisoners all the inhabitants of the
Island, in their streets as if there were free, in their concentration
camps, doubly vulnerable.

In these four months, the jail system was "visited" by a court of
eunuchs costumed as journalists, who went out to tell the world how
beautiful, dignified, clean and happy those same prisons are that serve
as a bonfire of liberty, of dignity, of humanity.

The Island of Happiness that the Castro brothers kidnapped and to which
they subjected as if they were dealing with their own fief, is in
reality The Jail Island. Never in the history of humanity was a so
limited geography known to have such a concentration of jails. Is it
possible that so few question why Cuba has 545 prisons in a geographical
area that barely reaches 110,860 square kilometers? As point of
reference, Spain has 504,645 square kilometers and 113 penitentiaries.

After that tour by "militant" journalism that the jails managed April
10, the penitentiary system was put to examination by the Counsel of
Human Rights on May 1, and in spite of having received 292
recommendations, the ambassador of the regime before the United Nations
in Geneva, Ana Rodriguez Camejo, had the impertinence to say that she
will accept "a broad group of recommendations" and implement them,
"according to our possibilities and the evolution of circumstances" and
that there is a "minority group (of recommendations) unacceptable to
Cuba," for being "slanted and politicized" and whose central objective
is to "discredit" the system. Of course that refers to the topic of
political prisoners, whose existence is demonstrated by this affirmation
itself, and with the objective facts about them that the human rights
organizations collected which reveal the size.

Currently in Cuba there are 93 political prisoners in jail, plus the 16
that find themselves released on parole. That figure indicates that
their numbers have doubled in the last year. The number of arbitrary
detentions has also grown in a grotesque manner — reaching an increase
of 50%, no more nor less, since the year before.

These are objective and empirically demonstrated acts, with photographs
and videos that fortunately — thanks to new technologies — leave Cuba to
show the world and reaffirm what we all know: that Cuba is drowning
under a cruel dictatorship that already passed its half century of
existence, but — and even more important – so many political prisoners
are jailed and so many arbitrary detentions are carried out because the
people's discontent with tyranny and the miserable life to which they
are condemned is greater. The increase in repression and abuses is
directly proportional to Cuba's craving for justice, liberty and
dignity. It is happening as it did with the Church in the Middle Ages
with witches: the more they burn, the more appear. The path of Cubans to
freedom is one with no turning back, and the arrival of freedom is every
day closer.

Angel is one of some many political prisoners in Cuba; but he is also
the only writer incarcerated for political reasons in all the American
continent, which is a great shame for the Castro regime.

Angel decided to commit himself to his fatherland and to defend the
highest values of the human condition, governed by the principles of
José Martí. He decided to do it knowing that he not only would lose his
"privileges" as an intellectual of officaldom, but also he knew that he
would possibly lose his liberty, as has occurred.

Today he lives incarcerated with a dignity that few can carry out and
that greatly infuriates his jailers.

Again we hold Raul Castro Ruz responsible for the integrity of Angel and
of all his companions who also suffer harassment and punishment for
being nearby and being in solidarity with him. The eyes of the world are
on Angel and on those who harass, intimidate, threaten or mistreat him.
The times have changed, and they can no longer keep the truth from being
known. And here we are — his friends and relatives — always ready to
denounce to all the highest and the most minimal abuse.

We also reiterate to Raul Castro that Angel not only should not be a
prisoner but also he is in a maximum security prison to which he was
taken in a violent and illegal manner. We demand that he be returned to
La Lima until they recover common sense and understand that they should
give him a trial with all the due process that he never had. They must
understand that all the evidence in the rigged trial and the complete
file are at the mercy of the world, which places the Castro judicial
system at the lowest level before the concert of civilized nations.

And we demand freedom for all the political prisoners. We hold Raul
Castro responsible for the lives and integrity of them all and remind
him that a woman gave life to him, too, that wherever she may be, she
contemplates with shame and disgust what he is doing to the brave Lady
in White Sonia Garro.

The friends and relatives of Angel Santiesteban-Prats

Translated by mlk

28 June 2013

Source: "Angel Santiesteban Today Finishes Four Months in Jail / Angel
Santiesteban | Translating Cuba" -
http://translatingcuba.com/angel-santiesteban-today-finishes-four-months-in-jail-angel-santiesteban/