uncertainty Wednesday, March 16, afterobserving his 15th anniversary inside a Cuban prison, a leading Christian human rights watchdog said.
UK-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) stressed it urged the European Union to support its action for the immediate release of 40-year old Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, also known as ‘Antunez’, a Christian who was arrested and detained on March 15, 1990, on charges of ‘verbal enemy propaganda.’
"We don’t want communism, we need reforms!" Antunez reportedly shouted in a public square during a live broadcast of the inauguration of the Fourth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party.
He was sentenced to six years imprisonment in the Alambradas de Manacas Prison and allegedly suffered repeated beatings by prison guards for his refusals to participate in mandatory Marxist ‘re-education’. "In May 1993 his sentence was increased to a total of 17 years for ‘enemy propaganda’ and ‘intent to inflict damage on government property,’" said CSW, which has investigated his case.
TORTURE
"During the 15 years he spent in prison, he has consistently denounced the torture and other inhumane treatment which prisoners are forced to endure at the hands of the guards," the human rights group added in a statement to BosNewsLife.
Antunez and two other prisoners founded the Pedro Luis Boitel National Movement for Civil Resistance, which seeks to record and denounce maltreatment of political prisoners and to promote passive resistance among the detainees to the abuse, CSW claimed.
"In retaliation, the authorities have repeatedly confiscated his Bible and denied him water, medical attention and clothes. Antunez has repeatedly gone on hunger strikes to draw attention to the prisoners’ plight, and his health has suffered enormously," CSW said.
BEATEN
Last summer he and family members, including children who had come to visit him, were reportedly beaten by prison guards.
"On July 6, family members of political prisoner [Antunez], arrested in 1990 for articulating "enemy propaganda," reported being beaten along with [political prisoner Jose Daniel Ferrer] Garcia during a prison visit," the United States State Department said last month.
"Authorities handcuffed and beat Garcia and later punched his sister and kicked his girlfriend’s nine year old son after the visitors protested the harsh treatment," it added in its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2004
ATTACKED
On February 12 this year, he was said to have been attacked by another, apparently mentally ill, prisoner and knocked unconscious. On February 24 the dissident was apparently transferred to the Regimen Especial de Camaguey, also known as "The 26".
During Pope John Paul II’s visit to Cuba in 1998, the pontiff reportedly included Antunez’s name on the list of political prisoners for whose freedom he was petitioning. He is also considered to be a prisoner of conscience by human rights group Amnesty International.
"The government in Cuba continues to try to convince the world that it does not have a human rights problem," said CSW National Director Stuart Windsor. "The experience of Antunez, however, which has been ongoing for 15 years, contradicts this. The international community, including the UK [which] prepares to take the EU presidency later this year, must continue to apply pressure on the Cuban authorities to respect basic principles of human rights and democracy."
PRAYERS
He said his organizations’ "prayers are with Antunez and his loved ones and we look forward to the day when we can celebrate his release." Cuban authorities have refused to acknowledge the word ‘dissidents’ and President Fidel Castro has described them as "mercenaries of the United States." The US State Department said that "prison conditions continued to be harsh and life threatening" for the at least 80 political and religious prisoners that are known to be held across the Communist island.
"The Government claimed that prisoners enjoyed rights such as family visitation, adequate nutrition, pay for work, the right to request parole, and the right to petition the prison director. Police and prison officials, however, often denied these rights in practice, and beat, neglected, isolated, and denied medical treatment to detainees and prisoners, including those convicted of political crimes or those who persisted in expressing their views," the State Department said.
"Political prisoners in particular often were held at facilities hundreds of miles from their families, placing an undue hardship on many families’ time and financial resources." Fabio Prieto Llorente, one of the 75 activists arrested in March 2003, said he was held in a small cell with leaky walls and a cement slab for a bed, the State Department reported.
"The cell was infested with rats, frogs, and insects. Prieto was serving a 20 year sentence for "acts against the independence or the territorial integrity of the State." (With BosNewsLife News Center, BosNewsLife Research, Reports from Cuba, United States and CSW)
