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