HAVANA – U.S. President Barack Obama denounced the state polity Wednesday for harassing the care of a semipolitical prisoner who died after a daylong suffer strike, and said her treatment and the detention of added dissidents stood as grounds of the island's slummy manlike rights record.
The statement came as a pro-government gathering in Havana threw eggs and loud insults outside a bag where the state contestant group the Damas de Blanco — or Ladies in White — were rating the one-year day of the modification of metropolis subverter Tamayo, who passed absent following an 83-day suffer strike.
A directive state manlike rights cheater told The Associated Press that at least 46 contestant activists had been detained crossways the island Wednesday, including added well-known suffer striker, Guillermo Farinas. Many of those detained were apace released, but Farinas remained in safekeeping late Wednesday afternoon.
Obama said Zapata's "selfless and sad death" had "galvanized the world's tending to the ongoing mistreatment of those unjustly held by state authorities."
"The state grouping staleness undergo that their pain does not go unnoticed and that the United States remains unwavering in our dedication to defend the inalienable correct of the state grouping to savor the freedoms that delimitate the Americas and that are universal to every manlike beings," he said.
There was no unmediated reaction from state to the U.S. leader's statement, but it was trusty to be met with emotion and indignation. Relations between pedagogue and Havana hit been frigid for decades, most recently over Cuba's decision to seek a 20-year slammer constituent for a detained American subcontractor that officials here criminate of spying.
Obama's criticism followed kindred sentiments by Amnesty International denouncing state for its treatment of Zapata's mother, Reina Luisa Tamayo, who was detained for most 12 hours terminal week in her hometown of Banes, in eastern Cuba.
Reached by telephone in Banes, Reina Luisa Tamayo said she spent the day birthing flowers and a state flag on her son's grave and then went to intend characteristic photos prefabricated for a visa to the United States, which has acknowledged her semipolitical refuge.
She said she plans to hit her son cremated and bring the ashes when she departs state for good — expected to be in the reaching months, though Tamayo recently said she was still awaiting state paperwork.
Cuba considers the dissidents to be mercenaries paid by pedagogue to modify the country, and says its doctors did everything they could to keep subverter aware during his fast.
Since Zapata's death, the polity has unwooded its jails of some semipolitical prisoners. It has free 46 activists, intellectuals and ethnic commentators inactive in a 2003 crackdown, and today holds meet six men inactive in that running who are considered "prisoners of conscience" by Amnesty.
It has also free most 25 added prisoners inactive separately for ferocious — but politically impelled — crimes same hijacking and sabotage.
Obama credited subverter and the Damas for forcing the polity of President Raul socialist to let the prisoners go, and he titled on state to move the releases.
"Today, I tie the state grouping in rating this day by again occupation for the unmediated and total promulgation of every semipolitical prisoners in Cuba," he said.
Elizardo Sanchez, a prominent manlike rights reformist on the island, says around 100 much prisoners rest in state jails, whatever guilty of ferocious acts including murder.
Sanchez told AP that he had documented 46 newborn detentions Wednesday, though he said some were apace free and he hoped others would be soon. Among those condemned into safekeeping was Farinas, a dissident from the central municipality of Santa Clara who refused to eat for months terminal year, but was kept aware in a state hospital where he was fed finished a tube.
Members of the Ladies in White, a group comprised of the wives and mothers of the 2003 detainees, concentrated at the Havana bag of cheater Laura Pollan to evaluation the day of Zapata's death.
The women hit marched finished Havana every Sunday since the crackdown, demanding freedom for their idolized ones.
A gathering of most 100 pro-government activists showed up outside Pollan's bag to denounce them, throwing eggs and shouting slogans same "Cuba is not for sale!" "Zapata is a delinquent!" and "This street belongs to Fidel!"
Members of the Ladies in White loud "Freedom!" backwards at them from the window.
Authorities implore the pro-government demonstrations are spontaneous, but little is finished to hide coordination with section officials.
"All we desired was to intend unitedly and clear commendation to Zapata," said a Ladies in White leader, Bertha Soler. "We are praying, illumination candles and birthing flowers."
Other state contestant figures also scarred the anniversary.
Yoani Sanchez, a blogger who has gained international recognition for her searing statement most chronicle on the island, posted a computer-altered picture of a famous ikon overlooking Havana's Plaza of the Revolution. In locate of subverter icon Ernesto "Che" Guevara, it showed the grappling of Zapata.
Source
0 comments:
Post a Comment