CUBA HUMAN RIGHTS ROUNDUP JULY 21, 2016

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 HAVANA 014841 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE DEPT FOR WHA/CCA E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/21/2016 TAGS: PHUM KDEM SOCI CU SUBJECT: CUBA HUMAN RIGHTS ROUNDUP JULY 21, 2016 HAVANA 00014841 001.2 OF 003 Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Robert I. Blau for Reason 1.4(d). ¶1. (C) Summary. Within a 24-hour period, Cuban authorities arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to four years dissident Alexander Santos Hernandez for "dangerousness." Another dissident, Camilo Cairo Falcon, was sentenced to one year of correctional work for "public disorder," following his participation in a protest. Guillermo Farinas stretched his hunger strike to 171 days, inspiring other political prisoners to launch hunger strikes of their own. Farinas' girlfriend was subjected to an "act of repudiation," as were the wife of political prisoner Ricardo Santiago Medina and activist Felix Bonne. Bonne was also detained for four hours by State Security and told that if Farinas dies, it will be the dissidents' fault. Numerous prisoners were transferred from Havana to outlying prisons, and there was speculation that the GOC might launch a new wave of arrests ahead of September's summit of the Non-Aligned Movement. Cubans in Geneva took steps to help the "Ladies in White" be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, but other women activists in Cuba pushed back against this idea. The GOC confiscated thousands of euros sent to an independent Cuban labor union by a Dutch Christian organization. End Summary. HOLGUIN DISSIDENT GETS FOUR YEARS -------------- ¶2. (C) On July 4, a court in the Holguin city of Gibara convicted Alexander Santos Hernandez, eastern provinces coordinator of the Cuban Liberal Movement (MLC),of "dangerousness" and sentenced him to four years in prison. MLC President Leon Padron Azcuy told us July 20 that Santos, 30, was only guilty of angering the Cuban Government by celebrating the MLC's fourth anniversary. Padron added that on June 30, Santos was attacked outside his home by Communist militants, one of whom kicked him in the mouth and caused a wound that required three stitches to close. In a separate case, a court in Santiago de Las Vegas, Havana Province, convicted dissident Camilo Cairo Falcon July 12 of public disorder and sentenced him to one year of correctional work. Cairo Falcon was savagely beaten on July 13, 2005 by Communist militants as he and other dissidents marked the 11th anniversary of the Cuban regime's sinking of the "13 de Marzo" tugboat. MORE HUNGER STRIKES -------------- ¶3. (C) As dissident journalist Guillermo Farinas continued his hunger strike for island-wide Internet access, several other political prisoners were carrying out hunger strikes of their own. Oscar Biscet, held at Havana's Combinado del Este prison, launched a liquids-only hunger strike on July 13 but ended it one week later, according to his wife, Elsa Morejon. Martha Beatriz Roque, leader of the Association to Promote Civil Society (APSC),told us that APSC executive Rene Gomez Manzano launched a total hunger strike July 13 at Taco Taco prison in Pinar del Rio. Roque quoted Gomez's brother as saying July 18 that Gomez had lost between 15 and 20 pounds. Two other political prisoners - Orlando Zapata Tamayo and Rene de Jesus Guerra - also started hunger strikes on July ¶13. (Other inmates showed solidarity in other ways. Ricardo Santiago Medina, a diabetic, was unable to forgo food but wore his prison uniform backward, his wife told us.) Gomez, held without formal charges for more than one year, launched his strike as a protest against the lack of charges and to demonstrate support for Farinas, a fellow APSC member. FARINAS "NOT SO GOOD" -------------- ¶4. (C) Farinas, for his part, told us by phone July 20 that he was battling a fever brought on by a staph infection, and that his overall health was "not so good." His hunger strike reached 171 days on July 21. Farinas was said to have ordered his IV tube disconnected on July 13, but he made clear that he continued to receive IV fluids. Speaking in a strong, clear voice, Farinas said that earlier in the day, doctors repositioned the catheter from his arm to his neck because of inflammation of a vein. He is demanding that the staff at his Santa Clara hospital move him to a room with a window, saying that if the demand is not met he will return home to die. Poloff started to congratulate Farinas for winning a human rights prize from the German city of Weimar, but the line suddenly went dead. Farinas' girlfriend Noelia Pedraza, who was present when the call was placed, said phone-call cutoffs were a favorite tactic of State Security. ACTS OF REPUDIATION CONTINUE HAVANA 00014841 002.2 OF 003 -------------- ¶5. (C) Pedraza said that on July 12 in Santa Clara, she was subjected to an "act of repudiation." She said State Security officers visited her third-floor apartment around 11 am and told her she was not allowed to leave home that day. Pedraza, defiant, left shortly after their departure, and moments later was grabbed in the street by "three large men whose fingernails dug into my skin." (She showed us an abrasion on her arm.) Pedraza, head of a dissident women's group in Santa Clara, said she was taken to a factory where 50 or 60 people chanted insults at her, among them "black worm." (Note: Pedraza, who is Afro-Cuban, said the chanters were of various races. End note.) Another act of repudiation occurred on July 18 in Havana, aimed at Katia Martin, the wife of Santiago Medina. Around 20 people spent the entire day outside the entrance to her Havana apartment building, where they unfurled a poster of Fidel Castro, chanted that Martin is a "mercenary" and "counter-revolutionary," and refused to let her or her three-year-old twin daughters leave. BONNE TARGETED -------------- ¶6. (C) Felix Bonne of the APSC was the target of a July 16 act of repudiation outside his Havana house. Bonne told us he was relaxing at home on a Saturday morning when three buses full of people arrived. The participants - "party members," said Bonne -- unloaded an enormous tank of soda, in an unsuccessful effort to attract neighbors. They then sang the national anthem and gave speeches condemning counter-revolutionaries. They left a short while later, but then State Security officers arrived, identified themselves and drove Bonne off to a safe house, where he was detained for four hours. "They said that if Farinas dies, it will be APSC's fault: 'You could stop this.' I said, 'You could stop this by offering Internet access'." SPACE BEING CREATED IN HAVANA PRISONS -------------- ¶7. (C) USINT received information from multiple sources that prisoners, both common and political, have been transferred from Havana jails to elsewhere in the country. Gerardo Sanchez, of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, told us June 20 that prisons in the central cities of Santa Clara and Sancti Spiritus were receiving large numbers of inmates from Havana. He acknowledged that rumors are circulating that the GOC will launch a wave of arrests - of dissidents or young people who hang out in the streets -- ahead of September's summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Havana. ¶8. (SBU) Sanchez said the GOC remains terrified of spontaneous protests in the densely populated capital, and relayed a story of what had happened several days earlier near his house. A problem with the city's water-delivery system left a housing complex without water for several days. Finally, a female resident who had had enough stood in front of the complex and, in a loud voice, complained that that the problem was unacceptable, and that the residents should walk to a nearby National Assembly office to complain. A crowd of 20 or so people gathered but did not make a protest walk. Water was flowing the next day. "LADIES IN WHITE" BACKERS URGE NOBEL NOMINATION... -------------- -------------- ¶9. (C) Cuban activists in Switzerland have launched a signature drive to nominate the "Ladies in White" - relatives of political prisoners - for the Nobel Peace Prize. The Cuban Community Cultural Association informed the Ladies (aka "Damas") of their effort, which has included the operation of a kiosk in the heart of Geneva, complete with posters of marching Damas. The group said that in just one day it received more than 300 signatures from Europeans and North and South Americans. The group said it hoped that similar actions would be taken in Miami, Madrid and elsewhere, leading to an "avalanche" of petitions reaching the Nobel Prize Institute. ... BUT DETRACTORS OBJECT -------------- ¶10. (C) Leading Ladies Laura Pollan and Miriam Leyva were delighted with the signature drive (and with Human Rights First's decision to award the group its annual human rights prize). But they told us July 20 that other women activists HAVANA 00014841 003.2 OF 003 planned to urge the Nobel Institute to honor Cuban political prisoners, rather than the Ladies in White. Pollan said the key figure opposed to a Dama nomination is Marcela Sanchez, the sister of activists Gerardo and Elizardo Sanchez and member of a women's group that was active eight years before the Ladies came onto the scene. GOC CONFISCATES DONATION TO LABOR UNION -------------- ¶11. (C) An outlawed labor union, the Unitary Council of Cuban Workers (CUTC),received a large donation from a Dutch Christian organization but then saw the money confiscated by the GOC, according to independent journalist Aimee Cabrera. Cabrera told us July 21 that in late May, "economic police" of State Security visited the home of CUTC Secretary General Maybel Padilla Perez. They produced a warrant, searched the home, and found and confiscated "thousands of Euros" sent to support the CUTC's activities. Padilla was not arrested, Cabrera said. BLAU