Cuban Political Prisoner Testimony at Global NGO Summit

BY: THE HILL

Please watch this gripping testimony by Fidel Suarez Cruz (*full bio below), Cuban pro-democracy activist and former political prisoner, at the Global Summit Against Discrimination and Persecution, which was held parallel to yesterday's meeting of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City.

Fidel Suarez Cruz is a farmer and human rights activist from the Cuban province of Pinar del Río. On March 19th 2003, following a previous house arrest for “disobedience” for fishing in a restricted area, Suarez Cruz was arrested and sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment. He was accused of violating Law 88, the legal instrument used by the Cuban authorities to silence journalists and writers on the island.

From April 2003 until the end of September 2010, he was held in isolation cells. For seven of these years, Suarez Cruz was prevented from any contact with other prisoners. For two years and eight months, he not allowed to receive any sunlight. Suarez Cruz was sent to numerous prisons during his sentence, where he was brutally beaten. From January 1st to February 9th 2005, he received 19 beatings for refusing to wear the common prisoner uniform, shave, or salute the military officials that visited his cell twice a day. On July 27th 2005, he received a terrible beating using a tonfa, a rubber coated steel rod used in Cuban prisons to beat prisoners. Suarez Cruz was also often kept in punishment cells, once for protesting in favor of an ill prisoner who was being denied medical attention, for which he was dragged across prison floors in such a manner that he was unable to breath and nearly suffered from a heart attack.

Suarez Cruz bears the signs of these beatings today. He lost the hearing in his right ear, developed an abnormality of the fifth spinal vertebra, dislocated his right leg, suffered from wrist injuries from handcuffs and had his right knee and first cervical vertebra damaged.