Bracketing Political Prisoners

February 4, 2011

BY: CAPITOL HILL CUBANS

Another month has passed since the heralded announcement of July 2010 -- that 52 specifically-named Cuban political prisoners would be released by the Castro regime.

And still, there has only been one release in Cuba.

Of those 52 political prisoners, 40 have been forcibly banished to Spain and 11 remain in prison for refusing banishment as a pre-condition.

Just this week, one of those 11, Diosdado Gonzalez, along with his wife, Alejandrina Garcia, a founding member of the Ladies in White, began a hunger strike demanding his release.

But before the foreign media could even report (or so we hope) on the hunger strike of Diosdado Gonzalez and his wife, the Castro regime (and its accomplices) moved quickly to announce the banishment of four previously unknown prisoners.

A coincidence? Far from.

The regime -- cleverly -- wanted to bracket any news stories about another month passing without the release of any of the 11, or the hunger strike by Diosdado Gonzalez and his wife.

Thus, the AP reported (and bracketed):

Cuba's government has agreed to free four opposition prisoners and send them into exile in Spain, a Roman Catholic Church official said Wednesday, but none of them are among a group of 11 prominent peaceful dissidents jailed since a 2003 crackdown on dissent.

And well-within the story, it mentions:

Alejandrina Garcia, the wife of one of those 11 prisoners, began a hunger strike on Friday to demand her husband's release.

Garcia's husband, Diosdado Gonzalez, and another dissident prisoner, Pedro Arguelles, joined the hunger strike on Tuesday. Gonzalez is being held at a maximum security prison in Matanzas, while Arguelles is in jail in the central province of Ciego de Avila.

It's imperative that we remind the international community (and the short-term memory of the Catholic Church) the names of the 11 political prisoners still awaiting for release within their homeland (which is their fundamental human right):

Pedro Argüelles Morán, Oscar Elías Biscet, Eduardo Diaz Fleitas, Jose Daniel Ferrer, Diosdado González, Iván Hernández Carrillo, Librado Linares, Hector Maseda, Felix Navarro Rodriguez, Angel Moya Acosta and Guido Sigler Amaya.