Cuba “Mistreats” Longest Detained Prisoner of Conscience, Wife Says

health of her frail husband and said he and other jailed dissidents have been mistreated.

"So many years of mistreatment and enclosure without exposure to the sun as frequently as he needs it have produced a lesion on his lung that, according to doctors, requires a delicate operation," said Ana B. Aguililla Saladrigas, whose husband  Francisco Chaviano Gonzalez, has been jailed since the early 1990s.

Gonzalez, 52, was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment on several charges including "revealing state security secrets" and "falsifying public documents."  Human rights group Amnesty International said Gonzalez was jailed "because of his peaceful and legitimate activities as President of the unofficial National Council for Civil Rights in Cuba."

In a letter obtained by BosNewsLife, Saladrigas stressed that despite her husband’s medical problems, prison officials have refused to allow him proper medical treatment and to place him in a less severe prison.

MESS AROUND

"To mess around with my husband, they promise him over and over again that he will be freed, next month or the one after that, and then nothing. They admit him to the hospital and dismiss him without completing examinations or giving him adequate treatment," she wrote. "We have also seen it necessary to send our young daughter who remained with us out of the country."

Previously in 1991, "when the problems began" their "two older children had to leave the country." She added that soon after "they incarcerated my husband and gave him the 15 years they promised," for refusing to leave the island.

She said that decision was made after years of difficulties. "From 1999 until 2003, we were not permitted to visit my husband in prison, and he was taken to punishment cells on several occasions where he was physically mistreated."

"SADISTIC JOKE"

Toward the end of 2003, she said, "a change of policy came about for us. It was communicated to us that they would set my husband free, and we thought that our ordeal would end."

However,  "instead of freeing my husband, everything became a sadistic joke. They beat him up and sent him to a punishment cell, and that was it," Saladrigas claimed.

Saladrigas,  a leading representative of the Cuban human rights group Ladies in White (las Damas de Blanco), made up of mainly women whose husbands are jailed for political reasons, said she was also worried of mistreatment of prisoners.

"I have heard of prisoners of conscience whose family members have been treated severely during inspections and of others who have had the time between their visits increased. According to our experience, these measures have been taken because of the activities that the Ladies in White have recently carried out and because of the acclaim they have received," she said.

EU AWARD

The group received the European Union’s 2005 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, considered one of Europe’s most prestigious human rights awards. The Ladies in White formed in March 2003 after the Cuban government launched a sudden sweep against dissidents nationwide. Seventy-five people, including many Christians, were arrested for crimes such as independent journalism and running private libraries.

After the wives on Sundays at St. Rita church to discuss brief sporadic the situation of their imprisoned husbands, those weekly meetings developed into regular peaceful protests. Their homes were reportedly ransacked and On Palm Sunday last year, the pro-government Federation of Cuban Women heckled them, news reports said.

Saladrigas said she wanted to write her letter to remind supporters not to forget Bible verse Hebrews 13:3: "Remember the prisoners as if you were one of them." Cuban leader Fidel Castro has denied human rights abuses. He has also denied the existence of dissidents, saying they are "mercenaries of the United States" working against his revolution. (With BosNewsLife Research and reports from Cuba).